The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the Istanbul convention as it is known, is not in compliance with the Bulgarian constitution, the Constitutional Court ruled.

The ruling was made by 8 votes, 4 of the judges signed dissenting opinions. The court finds that the convention separates the biological and the social dimension of the sexes, going beyond the frameworks of the view of the sexual binarity of the human species. According to the judges the Bulgarian constitution and the body of Bulgarian laws is built on an understanding of the binary existence of the human race, and the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention would impose procedures in Bulgaria that would provide for the legal recognition of a sex, different from biological sex.