Limits of Validity of the Bulgarian “Law of the Transition”

Abstract

Drawing from recent research on the contemporary social life in Bulgaria, the paper explicates how the historical peculiarity of the “transition” endues thecurrent social processes with qualitative specifi cities which are contradictory to the core preconditions and prerequisites for validity of the “rule of law”. The paper demonstrates the particular limits of the validity of the acting “law” in Bulgaria which, unlike the authentic modern law, is marginalised instead of being the supreme regulator of social interaction, netlike and bound to unequaladdressees instead of being abstract and impersonal, chaotic and fragmentised instead of being systematic and rational, dominated by state- (and thus party) interests instead of being autonomous. Hence the logical conclusion that only limited results could be achieved through interventions of strictly legal nature within these socio-historical conditions.