The National Assembly has adopted on first reading four bills on amendment of the Classified Information Protection Act.

The first bill moved by MP Metodi Andreev and a group of lawmakers from the GERB parliamentary group suggests that the employees involved with the collection and processing of classified information should also be checked for affiliation with the former state security and military intelligence services. The current legislation envisages such inquiries to be made only for high ranking officials and public figures but not for those who create, protect, communicate and destroy classified information. The bill contains another proposal, namely to introduce judicial oversight of the acts issued by the State Commission on Information Security, providing people who were refused access to classified information to appeal the decision in court.

The other bill, imported by MP Angel Naydenov and a group of deputies from BSP Left Bulgaria, proposes to abolish the rule of the current law requiring that access to classified information is granted to people who are not subject of pre-trial and court proceedings for intentional (deliberate) crimes of a general nature.

The draft of the Reformist Bloc MP Petar Slavov and a group of lawmakers addresses the same rule and points to the need to adhere to the presumption of innocence. The motives to the bill explain that the rule to not give access to classified information to people subject of pre-trial and court proceedings for intentional (deliberate) crimes of a general nature contradicts the stipulations of the Convention on Human Rights Protection and to the Penal Code itself which considers the accused innocent until proven guilty and only after the court decision has gone into effect.

The bill, tabled by the Council of Ministers proposes similar amendments.