Митническата измама по чл. 234 от Закона за митниците
The Customs Fraud under Article 234 of the Customs Act

Summary/Abstract: Questions relevant to the improvement of the legal settlement of the customs fraud are submitted for theoretical discussion in the article. The considered structure of the customs violation was initiated in the Bulgarian customs legislation in 1999 along with the new Customs Act, as in 2000 some considerable changes of the original text were made. Up to now the disposition of Art. 234 is combination of generally used and juridically defined terms, some of which are defined in other legal acts. On this basis the author accepts that the disposition of Art. 234 is combination of referring (to other Sections of the Customs Act) and blanket (directing to other legal acts) regulations. This legislative decision is criticized in the article and there is pointed out that the referring does not specify what those ,other legal acts" may be. There are also no directions for the authority competent for the publishing of the relevant act. The author develops further the adopted in the Bulgarian legal system two-stage administrative penalty regulations (first stage - Art. 6 of the general Administrative Penalty Act, second stage - the particular regulation of the relevant act), as he points out that there is also possibility for existing of third stage which should be consistent in other legal act different from the previous two but part of the content of the administrative penalty structure. This legislative solution is necessary because of the peculiarities of the structure of the customs fraud which technically by no means can be written in Art. 234 of the Customs Act. As this situation suggests certain freedom for the authorities creating regulations and enforcing the law and certain possibility for breaking of the principle of law permanence of the penalty, the author suggests that the criterion for violation unlawfulness should be determined only in the Customs Act. In conclusion some suggestions de lege ferenda for modification of Art. 234 of the Customs Act are made.

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