Анкетните комисии по член 106 от Търновската конституция
The Inquiry Commissions under Art. 106 of the Turnovo Constitution

Summary/Abstract: The concept of ministerial responsibility existed under the first Bulgarian Constitution adopted in Turnovo in 1879. It may be sought in various ways, the most easily applicable being by virtue of art. 106 of the fundamental law. In compliance with this article, the National Assembly had the right to set up inquiry commissions on the running of the State. These were commissions, made up of members of Parliament, looking into supposed unlawful actions committed by individual ministers or by a whole cabinet during their stay in office. The inquiry commissions on administration were envisaged at first to exercize parliamentary control, and if in the course of the investigation it transpired that the ministers had committed serious violations of the Constitution and the laws, then judicial responsibility should be sought from them under articles 154-159 of the Constitution. This was, however, a new, much more complicated and prolonged procedure which again began with actions of the national representatives but now subjected to the special Act for Suing Ministers. During the period when the Turnovo Constitution was in force (up to 1947) were set up seven parliamentary inquiry commissions on administration: two of them under art.3 of the Act for Suing Ministers of 1880 and five under art. 106 which are considered in this paper. The first of them was from 1884 and looked into the acts of ministers Todor Ikonomov and Grigor Nachovich. The second dated from 1895 and dwelt on political and economic offences committed by ministers of Stefan Stambolov.s Cabinet. The third dealt with the administration of Racho Petrov, Dr Peter Goudev and Dimiter Petkov. The last two concerned the work of ministers of the Cabinets of Ivan E. Geshov - Dr Stoyan Danev who were in office in 1911-1913 and of Alexander Malinov who headed the Government in 1918. The charges here were more complicated and referred to high treason, a most abstract and vague concept and therefore its proving was a difficult affair. Coming up for the first time against such a task, especially in the case of the commission of 1884, the national representatives faced, major difficulties in the organization and the conceptual elucidation of the problems. From then on the members of the commissions gained experience, consulted a considerably amount of law literature and began ever more successfully to realize the rights granted them by the Constitution, and that to the moment when party commitments took the upper hand. Despite the encountered difficulties, notwithstanding the ambiguities and contradictions, through these commissions the Bulgarian National Assembly made a big step forward along the road of its consolidation as an institution to which the governments and the individual ministers had to be answerable for infringements or the Constitution and the laws.

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