A five-judge panel from the Supreme Court of Cassation (VKS) and the Supreme Administrative Court has overturned a decision to bar judge Krasimira Doneva of Burgas District Court from the election of Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) members from the judges' quota. The VKS announced the ruling.

The SJC's judges' panel rejected her on 6 October, with 6 votes for and 2 against, saying her nomination was late. Doneva says she sent her documents on 4 September, within the deadline.

See also: Judicial council bars Burgas judge from council election

The five judges are three from the Supreme Court of Cassation and two from the Supreme Administrative Court. Their ruling cannot be appealed. The SJC's judges' panel must now look at the case again on its merits and follow the five judges' reasoning.

Dragomir Koyadzhikov, an SJC member and representative of the Commission on Performance Evaluation and Competitions, presented the case to the judges' panel. Doneva says her name later turned out not to be on the list of candidates, so she contacted the council. Her nomination had not reached the SJC's mailbox, and she says she never received a message that an email was rejected or not delivered.

Staff in the council's information technology department checked the case and concluded that she could hardly have failed to get such a message. Doneva sent the documents again, but it could not be established with certainty whether they were the same as in her first attempt. Other candidates whose documents the platform refused because of their large size got a message, called the SJC and submitted their nominations.

The Supreme Court judges say the limits on file size were not clearly announced to future candidates, and the parties do not dispute this. For that reason, candidates cannot be blamed for them. The court says a sender has no control over what happens to an email after sending it, and is not responsible if the platform did not return a message about an undelivered or rejected email. So the status of the electronic message in the portal does not affect the moment a nomination counts as submitted.