"Sexual or other orientation" - Part 6: The Commission against Discirmination
For those of you who have been following this case: finally there was a ruling of the Commission for Protection against Discrimination on 11 May! The Bulgarian “legalese” is too difficult for me to translate this time, so I’ll just give you the essence of the ruling (the translation is mine, with small abridgements here and there):
The Commission for Protection against Discrimination of the Republic of Bulgaria established that the Municipal council of Pazardzhik has performed direct discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation by approving the provision of Art. 14 of the Regulation on Public order with the following text, “The demonstration and expression of sexual or other orientation in public places is prohibited”.
The Commission orders the Municipal Council of Pazardzhik to repeal the provision of Art. 14 of the Regulation on Public order, which together with the motives for its approval leads to direct discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation, and as such is contrary to the Protection against Discrimination Act.
Full Bulgarian text here (or if that link doesn't work for you, here, but the copies aren't so good).
So, the Municipal Council was given 4 days to appeal this ruling to the Supreme Administrative Court, which it most probably will. Mr. Blago Petrov - the proponent of Art. 14 - and Mr. Georgi Yordanov - the Chairman of the Municipal Council - have already stated that publicly, but there is going to be an extraordinary session of the Municipal Council first.
(The complaint to the Commission for Protection against Discrimination was filed by Dobromir Dobrev and Radoslav Stoyanov.)