With a 36.2% increase in expenses in just one year, the judiciary's budget sets new records in absurdity and distance from reality. In nominal terms, this is an increase of over 442 million leva for 2025 alone, distributed mainly in the growth of salaries and additional payments for staff, which remain tied to the results of the judiciary's work only in theory. This is stated in the weekly bulletin of economists from IME, reports Focus.
The draft budget of the judiciary presented by the Supreme Judicial Council suffers from all the shortcomings of the budgeting of the entire draft law on the state budget for 2025, which we have already commented on in great detail here. The independence of the judiciary is a fundamental principle of the rule of law. However, this does not exclude the need for accountability, on the contrary - in order to guarantee real independence, clear corrective action and feedback from citizens and other institutions are needed. The judiciary also does not exist in a vacuum regardless of economic conditions.
The total amount of expenses reaches 1.7 billion leva. Of these, 1.4 billion leva are allocated for personnel, 146 million leva for maintenance and 95 million leva for capital expenses.
Personnel expenses, which already have a major share in the judiciary budget, are planned to exceed 1.4 billion leva in 2025 and further increase by another 450 million leva to 1.9 billion leva. in 2028.
The average salary of magistrates is planned to reach 10.1 thousand leva per month in 2025 and 13.4 thousand leva per month in 2028. Only selected sectors with very high added value (mostly high-tech and innovative) and individuals in high (often managerial) positions can currently boast of such salaries and such growth. According to the SJC, these salaries were achieved by complying with all legal requirements for salary growth and additional payments for the system and nothing more.
The proposal of the Council of Ministers for the budget of the judiciary is 277 million leva less, but in its motivations the Ministry of Finance also claims that it has complied with all legal requirements for salary growth of employees in the judiciary system. At this stage, it is not clear what the discrepancy between the two proposals is due to, but it is probably related to the additional payments in the nature of remuneration, which have long been typical of the system. For example, clothing expenses alone are planned to amount to 85 million leva for 2025.
There is still a positive development: for the first time, the SJC presents its budget in a program format. What is impressive:
The budget programs are rather organizationally oriented – i.e. around the individual institutions in the system – but this is a drawback of the program budgeting approach in general in a large part of the departments in our country and is not typical only for the judiciary.
For each of the separate budget programs, relatively detailed target indicators have been formulated. However, a large part of the indicators are rather an attempt to quantitatively measure the work done. This is undoubtedly useful, as it provides a lot of data on the system's activities and facilitates an external view and analysis.
At the same time, key elements that are at the core of program budgeting, understood as a tool for formulating, implementing and reporting on policy, are missing. On the one hand, the proposed indicators are not logically linked to the declared goals of each program – in other words, the cause-and-effect relationship is not defined, which would explain how the value of each of the indicators contributes to and measures the achievement of one or more of the set goals. On the other hand, setting goals cannot be out of context – they must be a path to solving identified problems, which in turn requires in-depth analyses, for example, of the workload and updating the court map.
However, the document lacks values for the indicators at the current moment, i.e. actually achieved results for the reporting period. This does not allow the target values set for the following years to be compared and potentially evaluated.
There is also no specified mechanism for adjustments and updates according to the achievement of the target values – in other words, if after one year there is a failure to implement any of the components in the programs, will this lead to a change in the future budget.
However, the presence of a program budget is the first step in the right direction of more effective, public and results-oriented budgeting. Expect a more detailed analysis of the program budget of the judiciary soon, and important indicators of its activity and financing can be found on "The Judiciary in Numbers: IME Interactive Dashboard".
In conclusion, we would like to note that there is a need to rethink the concept of judicial autonomy, especially with regard to the budget process and fiscal management. The judiciary does not exist for its own sake, but to guarantee the rule of law to Bulgarian society.