Bulgaria now has a new government. In words, the coalition has included in its program the fight against corruption and fairer justice.
How and whether this will happen? Judge Vladislava Tsarigradska from the Management Board of the Union of Judges speaks.
Point 5 of the agreement for a parliamentary majority between GERB, BSP and ITN states the following: “Effectively operating anti-corruption bodies and independent regulatory and control bodies“.
“This intention is dressed in quite general phrases, which, if not fulfilled with decisive actions, will be just another cliché. I can personally say that in recent months. "As a judge and as a member of the largest professional organization, I notice a total disregard for the expertise of the judiciary," Judge Tsarigradska told BTV.
And she gave an example of the former Minister of Justice – Maria Pavlova:
„She did something that no minister had ever dared to do before. In a working group for amending the Judiciary Act – extremely important changes, some of which introduced changes to the Constitution at the legal level, she excluded the Union of Judges in Bulgaria from the process of developing the project“.
She explained that traditionally the union, as well as other professional organizations of judges and prosecutors, always participate in this process.
„It was stated that this time the professional organizations were not invited, but in fact active representatives of the other organizations were present in the working group, but in their institutional capacity – as long as they hold senior positions in the court or in the prosecutor's office“.
According to her, the Union of Judges requested information from Minister Pavlova about who the members of the working group are and how this composition was formed, but she refused to provide it under the pretext that it is an internal departmental, not a public one.
Currently, a case is being filed before the Administrative Court, in which this is being disputed.
„A serious change was foreseen in the way the competitions are held, because we are observing the worrying trend of not the best and those who can rise in their careers, but in fact the most loyal, the most helpful, the most ready to do anything else, but not what the law dictates“, Tsarigradska said.
„Two tests are ahead. One is from the point of view of institutional reforms – will this government dare to talk about the necessary reform in the prosecution service, because Bulgaria has a prosecutorial system unknown to the democratic world - an all-powerful prosecutor general, an absolute monopoly on the key function of every prosecutor's office - to bring charges," she said.
Over the years, many colleagues of Judge Tsarigradska have said that this all-powerful figure of the prosecutor general is a legacy of totalitarian times and is of the Soviet type. And with the coming of the changes, no one touched her and so the powers have remained as they are.
„Exactly. The Union of Judges initiated an international conference at which we heard the shared experience of colleagues from Germany, Romania and Italy, who spoke about the forms of control. In Germany, control comes from the highest judicial instance - the Constitutional Court. He can tell the prosecutor “there is reason to accuse“, commented Tsarigradska.
She also touched on the topic of the procedure for selecting a new prosecutor general, which was suspended, and the only candidate for the position was Borislav Sarafov:
“Even if he is not a candidate, he remains and has the opportunity to currently hold this position. What if he was not elected, since since June 2023, after the regrouping with his former boss – Ivan Geshev, he headed the prosecutor's office. Do you remember the applications that Sarafov made – he gave an application that he would not run for prosecutor general.“
And she recalled the “Eight Dwarfs“ case:
“Some businessmen with huge opportunities...a business worth millions was robbed. He was robbed, thanks to the participation of the prosecutor's office, acting as a swindler. In a recent indictment against the only accused - Petyo Petrov "Euroto" - it is described how in the evening, at around 10:00 p.m., in the dark, a prosecutor Peychinov pushes a cart loaded with 35 kg of gold. He pushes it along the corridors of the specialized prosecutor's office to hand it over to Lyubena Petrova, who will load this gold into the trunk of a Mercedes.
“The gold is gone, what happened to prosecutor Peychinov - he received a light disciplinary punishment, a 10 or 20% reduction in his remuneration for some insignificant period. And the gold is gone. This also happened to the other persons involved. This means that they continue to head the prosecutor's office,“ she also said.