For the tenth year now, there has been an illusion that some kind of judicial reform is being carried out. There is enormous resistance to its real occurrence. Obviously, there is no political will and majority in eight consecutive Bulgarian parliaments to solve the systemic and structural problems in the judiciary. This was said by lawyer Velislav Velichkov – chairman of the independent civil society "Justice for Everyone" and a deputy from the UDF in the 38th National Assembly, in the program "Bulgaria, Europe and the World in Focus" on Radio "Focus“.
There are many structural problems in the judiciary. "They are mostly in the prosecutor's office, in the institution of the prosecutor general, in the way decisions are formed and made in the Supreme Judicial Council on personnel and administrative issues, as well as the issue of the judicial map, with what is happening in the administrative justice system, with the slow, uncertain and unpredictable civil justice, with the complete lack of a sense of justice and the complete ineffectiveness of criminal justice, which has not produced a single effective verdict against people from the highest echelons of power for the last 20 years", Velichkov listed.
The judicial system is in the grip of politics, he added. "This suffocating embrace is getting stronger, and the air – less and less“, the lawyer believes.
There is no desire to continue the judicial reform in the current ruling majority, he was categorical. "If someone wants to make such a reform, it is the so-called opposition bloc in the National Assembly, which does not have the necessary votes to do so. The maximum that can happen is to agree on some 160 votes, if they agree on the procedure, the method of nominating candidates and choosing the parliamentary quota in the SJC and the Inspectorate, which is serving a third term without having received a second regular term. If we have the SJC this year, at the very end of it we may have a new Prosecutor General and Chairman of the Supreme Administrative Court elected“, believes Velislav Velichkov.
According to him, the remaining of Borislav Sarafov in the post of acting Prosecutor General is a political deal. "Absolutely nothing depends on the SJC and the judiciary. This may be the product of a single-person decision by a corpulent member of parliament. Whether Mr. Sarafov will be in office for another 6 months, or whether Vanya Stefanova, who was abruptly appointed this month as Deputy Prosecutor General, will take over the position of acting prosecutor, those who are supposed to set the machine in motion have clearly not yet decided," commented Velichkov.