Bulgaria adopts EU-mandated constitutional amendments on judiciary News
Bulgaria adopts EU-mandated constitutional amendments on judiciary

[JURIST] The Bulgarian National Assembly [official website, in English] on Friday adopted [press release] amendments to its constitution [text, in English] in an effort to increase the efficiency and transparency of the country's judiciary. The amendments, required for entry to the European Union [official website], were passed on their third reading, 192-28, with six members abstaining. Under the new changes, judges, prosecutors, and state investigators will no longer be entitled to full immunity, and instead limited immunity will be restricted to officials acting in their official capacities. A new monitoring body, to be elected by members of parliament, was also established. Constitutional changes in Bulgaria require a majority consisting of at least "three quarters of the votes of all Members of the National Assembly in three ballots on three different days."

Bulgaria [JURIST news archive] joined the EU [JURIST report] on January 1, 2007, following six years of accession negotiations. In February of last year, the National Assembly approved [JURIST report] the amendments at first reading following warnings from the EU over corruption in Bulgaria and potential delays in joining the bloc [JURIST report]. AFP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Bank of England granted political independence

On May 6, 1997, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced that the Bank of England would be granted political independence for the first time in the three-hundred year history of the Bank. This policy was statutized in the subsequent Bank of England Act of 1998 gave the Bank independent control of British monetary policy effective June 1, 1998. Read the Bank of England Act of 1998.

Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese laborers from US

On May 6, 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States and prohibiting courts from bestowing US citizenship on Chinese. Connecticut Senator Joseph Hawley spoke out against the Act in these words: Let the proposed statue be read 100 years hence, dug out of the dust of ages and forgotten as it will be except for a line of sneer by some historian, and ask the young man not well read in the history of this country what was the reason for excluding these men and he would not be able to find it in the law. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its successors were abolished in 1943 at the insistence of President Franklin Roosevelt.