The legal committee in parliament has adopted a suspension of the procedure for the election of the chief prosecutor. Is this enough and what steps and reactions can we expect… Lawyer Mincho Spasov speaks to FACTI.
- Lawyer Spasov, the parliament has prohibited the Supreme Judicial Council with an expired mandate from electing the three scoundrels in the judiciary. What's next?
- It depends on the decision of the members of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) whether they will obey this law that has not yet entered into force before the promulgation procedure and the three-day period for informing citizens about the law (Vocatio legis) have passed.
Another possibility is for Mr. Borislav Sarafov to withdraw from the competition himself. A third possibility is for President Rumen Radev not to sign the decree if the SJC elects Sarafov. But, in my opinion, Mr. Sarafov's chances of becoming a permanent Prosecutor General are now nil.
- In your opinion, is there a possibility that Borislav Sarafov's candidacy will not collect the necessary 13 votes at the SJC meeting tomorrow when electing the Prosecutor General?
- Of course, there are all kinds of possibilities. But I expect tomorrow the prosecutorial college in the SJC to issue an indignant statement that through this law the National Assembly is depriving it of its powers. There will probably be such a comment from the prosecutors.
- President Rumen Radev, if he does not sign the decree, and this is given that the SJC elects Borislav Sarafov, is he simply giving time for the changes to the Judiciary Law, which the parliament is expected to vote on, to come into force?
- Exactly. President Rumen Radev can legitimately not sign the appointment decree.
- And after the changes are published in the State Gazette in this additional time, a new procedure must be started, and after today's changes, a newly elected SJC will have to conduct it…
- The rush of the current SJC is strange. They do not take into account the fact that there is a pending case No. С313 from 2023 in the European Court. In it, the Sofia District Court raises the question of whether the Inspectorate of the Judiciary, as a body with an expired mandate, can initiate disciplinary proceedings to impose a penalty on a magistrate before the SJC, which has also expired. What is interesting about this case is the opinion of the Advocate General of the European Court, who has given an opinion that a disciplinary or personnel body of the judiciary with an expired mandate cannot carry out such actions. We await the decision of the European Court in this case.
- Currently, the options for choosing a new Prosecutor General are limited to his deputies. In this sense, do we have a predetermined choice again?
- In this configuration - yes. Let me just remind you that under the Constitution, not only the prosecutorial college in the SJC has the right to propose a candidate for Prosecutor General, but also the Minister of Justice. It is strange why the ministers of justice, who are supposed to have been nominated and nominated by GERB, and not by DPS-Peevski, have refused to nominate candidates for several terms. That is, there is a chance that the minister of justice, if he gains courage, will propose another person. It is even desirable that this person be a lawyer outside the prosecutor's office system in order to avoid interpretations of regrouping, which Sarafov himself promised Geshev.
For example, this could be a professor - as we had the case with Boris Velchev, he could be a lawyer, he must be a person with legal education and experience.
- When do you expect us to have concrete developments regarding the election of a new prosecutor general?
- When we have a new composition of the Supreme Judicial Council.
- This requires political will?
- Yes, this requires political will. Because of the high quotas introduced for his election. I am sure that such cases, arising from the delay of the National Assembly in electing the members of bodies with a mandate, would be overcome very easily if, by analogy with the inability of the National Assembly to appoint a government, one were appointed ex officio by the President. So why not, in the event of the inability of the National Assembly to elect such bodies, they should also be appointed ex officio by the President until a consensus is reached in the National Assembly.