Businessmen Plamen Galev and Angel Hristov, who played cat and mouse with the police for several weeks at the end of 2008 and have been under arrest for the past five months, are back in the spotlight with an exotic but completely legitimate idea.

Following the latest amendments to the Election Act, Menko Menkov, lawyer for the "Galevi brothers" as the media call them, said that they had decided to take part in Bulgaria’s July 5 parliamentary elections.

According to Menkov, the two had decided to answer the call of many of their fellow citizens from the small southern town of Doupnitsa who had asked them stand for Parliament.
This will become possible because, for the first time in the past 18 years, Bulgarians will be able to vote for 31 majority candidates - meaning, MPs elected directly as individuals rather than off a party list - for the 240-seat Parliament.

All that the Galevi have to do, according to the amended law, is to form an initiative committee of between three and seven people, find 20 000 signatures in their support (10 000 each) and deposit 30 000 leva (15 000 each). All of this can be done by their committee, Menkov told private national broadcaster bTV on April 28 while the two were under arrest awaiting trial.

Plamen Galev is charged with intimidating a local journalist while Angel Hristov is charged with organising a criminal group. This, however, could change because according to the Penal Code, a person who is registered as an MP candidate can ask for a halt to all legal proceedings against him so that he can campaign for the elections.

This means that the Galevi brothers can be set free for the duration of the 21-day  election campaign. To make this happen, the two must be first registered as candidates by the Central Elections Committee (CEC).

If this happens, magistrates will have no choice but to set them free, which puts the pressure on the CEC. This is why Menkov said that  he had heard comments that the CEC could find some technical reason not to register the two as candidates, although if they meet all of the legal requirements, refusal to register them would become effectively impossible.

The situation will become even more interesting if the two actually manage to win seats in Parliament, because the only way the investigation against them can continue is if Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev asks Parliament to strip them of their immunity from prosecution, or if the two voluntarily decided to do the same.

According to Menkov, the Galevi brothers "are intending to do the latter" which suggests that the whole idea must have been conceived as a way to show the authorities the support that the two enjoy among their fellow citizens.

This situation, however, is only hypothetical. Even if the two are registered by the CEC, they hardly stand any real chance of being elected. First, because Doupnitsa is part of the Kuystendil election region which can send only one majority-elected candidate to Parliament, not two. This raises a moral issue because it is obvious that the two "brothers" have no real hope of getting into Parliament but have a good chance to be set free from their arrest for the duration of the campaign.

"The two have never been sentenced and enjoy the same rights as every Bulgarian and I don’t see why they cannot exercise them," Menko said.
Indeed, there are several hundred people awaiting trial in Bulgaria, and all of them can do the same as the Galevis intend, even though it would in effect lead to postponing justice because it would halt all legal proceedings against them.

As Velchev told reporters on April 27, "this is in effect a delay of justice but let us wait first and see whether it will happen".