News

7 November 2025

Ombudsman Velislava Delcheva approached the Constitutional Court with a challenge of the constitutionality of Art. 147, para 9а of the Road Traffic Act (RTA). The text challenged provides that the inspection of a motor vehicle shall be conditional on the verification of the payment of traffic fines by the owner, the user or the individual who brings the vehicle for inspection.

In the Ombudsman’s view the provision in question violates fundamental rights that the Constitution guarantees: the right to work, the right to own property and the right to free movement (Art. 4, para 1, Art. 16, Art. 17, paras 1 and 3, Art. 35, para 1 and Art. 48, para 1).

The Ombudsman emphasized that the new measure is disproportionate and unfair as it disallows citizens to use their cars even when they are in a good technical shape. Thus, the law does not protect the public interest but becomes a tool of pressure and this conflicts with the principles of the state committed to the rule of law.

“The provision passed allows the government to set an artificial obstacle for the exercise of the right to ownership without any relation of the legitimate objective of technical inspections,” Velislava Delcheva wrote in her request to the Court.

The Ombudsman noted that the legal text impacts directly the right to work, especially the people whose job or daily work requires the use of a motor vehicle.

In her request, Velislava Delcheva reminded that the Constitutional Court had previously pronounced similar decisions – Decision No. 3/2021 and Decision No. 6/2023 where it held that circumvention of the law-established procedure for the collection of public receivables by a restriction of the right to movement is noncompliant with the Constitution.

In the Ombudsman’s view, the new provision sanctions citizens not because they endanger traffic safety but because the state authorities are not effective in the collection of the fines due. Instead of using legal tools, the authorities shift the burden onto the people and strip them of the opportunity to use their vehicles lawfully, in a manner that is unjust, disproportionate and at variance with the principles of the state committed to the rule of law.