MINELREL-L Archive (11061999-11:14:07-16884)

Bulgaria: Tolerance Foundation Campaigns for Draft Denomination Act


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Subject: Bulgaria: Tolerance Foundation Campaigns for Draft Denomination Act


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Original sender: Greek Helsinki Monitor <[email protected]>

Bulgaria: Tolerance Foundation Campaigns for Draft
Denomination Act


TOLERANCE FOUNDATION*
 
PRESS RELEASE
 
October, 31
Sofia
 
BULGARIA: TOLERANCE FOUNDATION HAS STARTED A CAMPAIGN FOR PRESENTATION
OF A DRAFT DENOMINATION ACT, WHICH HAVE BEEN PREPARED BY COALITION OF
BULGARIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS.
 
As it is well known, on July, 8 Tolerance Foundation made a big
conference for discussing of the three drafts on Religious Affairs
which now are under discussion by the Parliamentary Commission on
Human Rights and Religion. Then the leaders of almost all minority
religious communities, who took part in the conference, approved a
statement, in which they declared their disapprobation of these
drafts. They also stated that the drafts essentially restrict the
rights of the religious minorities in our country. They called the
National Assembly to turn down them as well, as to accept a new,
really liberal and nondiscriminatory Denomination act.

Managed by the idea that the criticism by itself is not enough if we
want to achieve an improvement of Religious Human Rights situation,
Tolerance foundation and its partners - the Bulgarian Helsinki
Committee and the Bulgarian Center for Human Rights - have decided to
make a step forward and to prepare own Denomination act, that would be
presented at the public for discussion. We have wanted to create a
liberal and nondiscriminatory Draft. During the summer break of the
National Assembly Mr. Plamen Bogoev, who is an Executive Director of
the Bulgarian Center for Human Rights, prepared our Draft. He is a
distinguished lawyer and Human Rights activist. For seven years, he
was a legal adviser both of the former President Dr. Jelev and the
present President Mr. Stoyanov.

Earlier this October we started a campaign for launching to this
Draft. The first step was a special seminar that took place on October
11 in Sofia. Almost all leaders of the minority religious communities
took part in this seminar. Mr. Maurice Werfaillie, a Secretary General
of the International Association for Defense of the Religious Liberty
with head quarter in Bern, Switzerland, was a special guest of our
seminar. He took part also in our July conference. Mr. Konstantin
Todorov, a Legal Secretary of the President of the Republic took part
in the work of the seminar and Ms. Jaclyn Toleva, a legal adviser of
the Parliamentary Commission on Human Rights and Religion presented
that Commission. Mr. Werfaillie delivered a speech on the Models of
Religious legislation. After this, the Draft was presented by its
author Mr. Bogoev. More than 20 leaders of minority religious
organizations took part in the following discussion. Many of them made
valuable suggestions for improving of the Draft. (Mr. Bogoev said that
would take into account many of them and would include the most
suitable into new edition of the Draft. The new edition will be ready
on next Wednesday.) The religious activists adopted a special brief
statement. In it, they called the Parliament to transform the Draft
into a Law. (The text of our Draft is given as supplement to this
Press release.)

The main positive points of our draft are:

The main religious rights of the citizens are listed. They include the
right of citizens to have religious convictions or beliefs, the their
freedom to change them as well as the freedom to confess them
individually or together with other persons, in public or private
places, through rituals, practice and preaching;

- It is written in the Draft that all religious organizations in the
country have equal rights. There is not a religious organization that
has any preference according the Draft.

- The administration, for a first time in the legislative tradition in
Bulgaria in this field, is shouted out from the process of creating,
transforming and/or closing down of the religious organizations;

- There is a guarantee in our Draft of the right of religious
organizations to create secondary and higher religious education
institutions for the formation of clergy and workers of other
religious vocations needed by them also to create charitable bodies,
hospitals, schools, asylums, boarding schools and other institutions,
and to acquire property in correspondence with the acting law;

- All religious organizations have a right to access to the public
media without any discrimination according our Draft;

- According to the Draft the state take a duty for non-interference in
the internal affairs of the religious organizations;

- Discrimination on a religious basis is forbidden in our Draft;

There are definitions of the concepts "religion" and "discrimination
on the basis of religion" in our draft. It has been done for a first
time in our legislative tradition in the field of the religion.

It is not allowed to the Bulgarian citizens and/or their nonfood the
profit organizations to have a legislative initiative. Only the MP and
the council of Ministers have a right to offer Draft Laws in the
National Assembly. By this reason Tolerance Foundation and the
Bulgarian Helsinki Committee have taken efforts to create the lobby
among the MP. We have talked with different MP and at first place with
the MP from the MRF (MRF is abbreviation of the Movement for Rights
and Freedoms, which are a political party of the Turkish minority in
the Bulgarian Parliament. It is well known as a strong defender of
Human Rights of the Bulgarian citizens.) We expect to receive in close
future an answer from them whether they would introduce this Draft in
the Parliament or not. If it would be done, the Parliamentary Human
Rights Commission will be forced to discus the Draft. We think that
this discussion would have influenced in positive way on the quality
of the future Denomination act.

In the same time together with the lobbying in the Parliament we have
tried to spread our ideas by the media. There were three broadcasts
related with our Draft on the Bulgarian National Radio, on the private
TV channel Demo and also on the Radio Free Europe during the last
three weeks. There were also articles on the same topic in the central
newspapers 168 chasa(168 hours) and Monitor. On closest future The
Balkan Information Agency will make a special public discussion the
dedicated on the topic of Religious Human Rights of the Bulgarian
citizens as well as on the all four Drafts (these three that are under
discussion in the national Assembly and our Draft).

Tolerance Foundation and our partners � the Bulgarian Helsinki
Committee and the Bulgarian Center for Human Rights - hope that at the
end this campaign will give a result and therefore the Denomination
Act that the National Assembly will adopt will be closer to the spirit
of the international standards in the field of the right of freedom of
conscience, mind and religion than the three Drafts that are under
discussion.

We hope that the international Human Rights community will support our
efforts for improvement of religious legislation in our country.
 
For Tolerance Foundation:
 
Emil Coven,
 
President
 
*Tolerance Foundation is human rights group, monitoring the freedom of
conscience and the religious freedom practices in Bulgaria, providing
legal assistance to victims of discrimination based on religion, as
well as propagating the idea for tolerance towards religious and other
convictions.
 
The group was founded in 1994. President of the Tolerance Foundation
is Mr. Emil Cohen.
Address: 1000 Sofia, 163A "Rakovsky" St., phone/fax: (+359 2)981 23
57; phone:(+359 2)9883136
 
E-mail: [email protected]
 
Enclosure: The full English translation of our Draft Denomination act:
 
DENOMINATIONS ACT
 
A project produced by Mr. Plamen Bogoev, Director of the Bulgarian
Human Rights Center, after the request of the Tolerance Foundation
 
Article 1. Every citizen of the Republic of Bulgaria has the right to
freedom of religion and beliefs, this right including the freedom to
have, change or have no religion or beliefs, as well as the freedom to
confess them individually or together with other persons, in public or
private places, through rituals, practice and preaching.
 
Article 2. (1) All citizens are equal before the law irrespective of
their religious denominations or beliefs and they have the same civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights.
(2) Nobody shall be coerced against his or her will into revealing his
or her religion or beliefs.
(3) Nobody shall be coerced into performing military service contrary
to his or her religious or other beliefs.

Article 3. Nobody shall be restricted in his or her rights on the
grounds of having a particular religion or beliefs. Discrimination on
a religious basis is forbidden.
 
Article 4. (1) Bulgarian citizens can be taught in religion as a
school subject and receive religious education in the respective
language according to their choice, individually or together with
other persons.
(2) Parents have the right to educate their children in correspondence
to their attitude toward religion.
 
Article 5. All churches and religious denominations in the Republic of
Bulgaria are equal before the law.
 
Article 6. (1) Religious organizations acquire the status of a legal
person as from the moment of their registration in the regional court
in whose region their seat is located.
(2) For a religious organization to be registered, it presents its
rules which state its denominational affiliation, its kind, the organs
of its government and its seat.
(3) One may appeal against a refusal to register a religious
organization under the order stated in the Civil Procedure Code. The
participation of a prosecutor in the registration procedure is
mandatory.

Article 7. (1) In order to achieve their goals, religious
organizations create and maintain freely accessible places for divine
services, rituals and religious rites, and perform publications and
other activity allowed by the country's law.
(2) They have the right to:
1. create secondary and higher religious education institutions for
the formation of clergy and workers of other religious vocations
needed by them;
2. create charitable bodies, hospitals, schools, asylums, boarding
schools and other institutions, and to acquire property in
correspondence with the acting law;
3. to use equally with public organizations the state owned mass
media;
4. to receive voluntary financial and material offerings which shall
not be taxed.
 
Article 8. Religious organizations shall not take part in the activity
of political parties or give them any financial support.
 
Article 9. (1) The State shall not interfere with the activity of
religious organizations unless such activity violates the
Constitutions and the laws of the country.
(2) The State has no right to give privileges to any particular
religious organization.
(3) The State can support financially the medical activity and the
educational, charitable and social services of religious organizations
without discrimination and with a treatment equal treatment with that
of non religious organizations.
 
Article 10. (1) Religious organizations are discontinued in accordance
with their regulations.
(2) Professing a religion or belief can only be restricted on the
basis of the law and whenever it has been proved that such restriction
is necessary for the sake of the public order, health, ethics, and of
the rights and freedoms of other citizens.
 
Article 11. The procedure of discontinuing a religious organization is
started under the request by the prosecutor to the regional court that
has registered it.
The decision of discontinuing is open to appeal under the order stated
in the Civil Procedure Code.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY CLAUSE
 
Explanations of some terms
 
Article 12. The below terms and expressions are used in this Act in
the following meanings:
1. "Religion" is to mean the personal commitment and service to one or
more beings or spiritual teachers with a faithful devotion; a system
or systems of beliefs, faith, creed, or worship, or the veneration of
sacred beliefs, customs and practices of traditional cultures.
2. "Discrimination on the basis of religion or beliefs" is to mean any
discerning, exclusion, restriction, preference, omission or any other
kind of different treatment based on a religious denomination and
aiming at or leading to, directly or not, with or without intention,
to abolishing or violating the recognition, equal use or exercise of
rights and freedoms.
 
TRANSITORY CLAUSES
 
1. This Act abrogates the Denominations Act adopted by the Great
National Assembly on 24 February 1949.
 
2. The clauses of the regulations of religious organizations setting
the status of the clergy shall correspond to the principles of the
labor law in the Republic of Bulgaria.
 
MOTIVATION
 
The current Denominations Act was adopted in 1949. From 1992 on, after
the decision of the Constitutional Court, many of its texts have been
abrogated. In the meantime, the Republic of Bulgaria signed and
ratified a number of international agreements in the field of human
rights, which thus became a part of the Bulgarian internal law by the
force of Art. 5(4) of the Constitution.
 
This project aims at granting the right of freedom of thought,
conscience, and religion, in correspondence to the Constitution and to
the international law, by recognizing and guaranteeing this right to
the citizens of the Republic of Bulgaria.
 
For the first time, it contains a legal definition of the term of
'discrimination', which will assist to the equal treatment of persons
of different religious denominations. The choice of a denomination is
differentiated clearly and with precision from the practice of a
religion, and the grounds for restricting the profession of a religion
are clearly stated.
 
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