The Legal Committee in the parliament is hearing the candidates for constitutional judge. From “We continue the change - Democratic Bulgaria“ they submitted the candidacy of Yonko Grozev, and from GERB-SDF, Orlin Kolev.
Currently, the Constitutional Court is working with one less member after the expiration of Konstantin Penchev's mandate.
On February 12, the National Assembly adopted procedural rules for the election of a judge to the Constitutional Court from the parliament's quota.
Who is Yonko Grozev?
Yonko Grozev was born in 1965, graduated in law from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski“ in 1991, and in 1994 he defended his master's degree in law at Harvard University, USA. In 1992 he was among the founders of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, whose legal program he headed from 1995 to 2005.
He was elected as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights for the term 2015-2024, and for the period from May 18, 2020 to May 17, 2022 he was elected from among the judges at the ECHR as the president of one of the five divisions of the court.
He is also the founder of the “Access to Information“ Foundation in 1996, as well as a member of the Legal Advisory Committee of the European Center for Human Rights between 1998 and 2010. Member of the Board of Directors of “Bulgarian Lawyers for Human Rights“ between 2009 and 2013, in the management boards of the Center for Liberal Strategies in the period 1993 - 2013; Bulgarian Helsinki Committee in the period 1992 - 2005; “Open Society” Institute in the period 2001 - 2004; Center for the Protection of the Rights of People with Mental Disabilities, Budapest, in the period 2002 - 2006; Foundation “Access to Public Information” in the period 1996 - 2002.
Heads the working group in the Ministry of Justice on the development of a strategy for institutional reform in the implementation of the ECtHR judgments 2002-2006.
In 2002 was awarded the International Human Rights Award by the American Bar Association.
Who is Orlin Kolev?
Orlin Kolev is 46 years old from Vidin. He graduated from the "Law" department at the "Neofit Rilski" Southwestern University in 2004 and was awarded as the top graduate of his class.
Orlin Kolev's scientific and teaching activities began in October 2006 at the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and since May 2009 he has been an assistant professor of constitutional law in the "Constitutional Law" department at the Faculty of Law of Sofia University.
In October 2012 became a doctor of constitutional law with the dissertation "Right of political association in the Republic of Bulgaria". From 2013 to the present he is a senior assistant professor of constitutional law in the Department of "Constitutional Law" at the Faculty of Law of Sofia University. He studied and specialized in Brighton, UK 2000, Copenhagen, Denmark 2000, Kincardine, Scotland, UK 2007, Washington D.C., USA 2018.
He is currently a member of the Commission for Protection against Discrimination.