Sad news

O B I T U A R Y

On 15 May 2013
passed away

Prof. Emilia Vasileva Kandeva-Spiridonova, PhD
(23 July 1939 – 15 May 2013)

We have lost an erudite and authoritative scholar, a warm-hearted and kind colleague, a model of academic excellence and an example to us all. She has left us after many years as a talented and dedicated researcher in the field of administrative law and public administration.
Professor Kandeva was born on 23 July 1939 in Sofia. She graduated from the Faculty of Law of Sofia University "St Kliment Ohridski" in 1961. In 1971 she defended her doctoral dissertation. In 1974 she successfully completed a programme in American law at Leiden University. For two years she worked in the Department for Planning of Scientific Activity of the BAS, and from 1980, following a competition, she began work as a research associate at the Institute of Law of the BAS, and from then on her entire career was bound up with the Institute for Legal Studies / Institute for the State and the Law. Through her outstanding achievements as a scholar and her highly qualified work as a university lecturer and Fulbright lecturer, Prof. Kandeva represented the Institute and Bulgarian scholarship with distinction in Bulgaria and abroad. She was an authoritative, sought-after and valued expert and legislative drafter in the field of administrative law, public administration, territorial and local self-government, municipalities and municipal activities and other related areas of law, a favourite lecturer of students and a beloved scientific supervisor of doctoral students, with whom she worked devotedly and with great affection. Professor Kandeva is the founder of the discipline of public administration in Bulgaria. She is the author of the books "Управленско решение", "Съвременно административно правосъдие", "Публична администрация", "Правен режим на държавната служба" (co-authored with B. Yordanov), "Оперативна самостоятелност в административната дейност", "Общини и общински дейности в развитите страни", "Обществен контрол", "Местното административно управление в САЩ", "Записки по административно правосъдие", "Сравнителна публична администрация: държавно управление и администрация в други страни" (co-authored with Ivona Hecht), "Административно правосъдие: право и практика" (Feneya, 2013) and of more than seventy other publications. 
Prof. Emilia Kandeva, PhD, was the founder and director of the Centre for Administration under the first democratic government in Bulgaria. A large part of the book by the American scholar and writer Randall Baker, "Лято на Балканите – смях и сълзи след комунизма", is devoted to the personality and role of Prof. Kandeva as a thinker and driving force of the democratic changes in public administration in Bulgaria.
Her kindness and collegiality, competence, diligence and energy, and the high standard of her numerous research works and publications will remain a bright example and a bright memory for all of us.

A worthy and good person has gone, who will be missed by all of us!

We bow deeply before her bright memory!

Colleagues from the Institute for the State and
the Law at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences