Given that the collective responsibility of the government to the legislature is central to the definition of semi-presidentialism, the rules and procedures for holding governments accountable are of fundamental interest. Obviously, these rules vary from one place to another. In some cases, legislatures can table no-confidence motions at any point. In other cases, no-confidence motions are limited to perhaps one per year. In other cases still, a super-majority is required for a motion to be successful. (See previous post).

In Bulgaria, the official News Agency is reporting a Supreme Court ruling on no-confidence motions. The ruling rests on the distinction between a confidence motion (one tabled by the government itself) and a no-confidence motion (one tabled by the opposition against the government).

Apparently, parliament’s internal regulations stated that if a government had tabled a motion of confidence in itself on a particular subject, then a motion of no-confidence could not be tabled for six months on the same subject. The Court has struck down this provision.

In January this year, the government tabled a general motion of confidence in itself. Therefore, following the Court’s ruling, the opposition can now table a motion of no-confidence within six months on a particular subject. This means that the parliamentary opposition is somewhat empowered.

The report also states that there have been only three motions of confidence since the passage of the constitution in 1991. The first was in 1992 and led to the collapse of the Dimitrov government when the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) withdrew its support. The second was in 1994 when the Berov government successfully tabled a confidence vote. The third was earlier this year as reported in a previous post.