"I would like to know that the SJC will apply the law, but it applies politically strong arguments. It seems to me that Sarafov will be saved this time too - once again, until the post-election signal is received, which in my opinion will not be legally strong, but will be politically strong and will show once again that in an independent judiciary one of the elements of influence is political, the other is economic and intra-institutional".
This was stated to the Bulgarian National Radio by Ivan Bregov - head of the Legal Program of the Institute for Market Economy. His comment was in connection with the proposal submitted by the acting Minister of Justice Andrey Yankulov for the disciplinary dismissal of the acting chief prosecutor Borislav Sarafov.
"This Minister of Justice uses the entire legal toolkit to challenge Sarafov's self-installation and self-enclosure with power - something he does not do alone. He is institutionally and unlawfully supported by the Supreme Judicial Council. The prosecutor's office itself uses a double standard. Before Western institutions, before Ms. Kövesi, he claims that the Bulgarian European Prosecutor has committed a crime or at least has collected enough evidence to presume that such a crime has been committed, while at the same time on Bulgarian territory the ordinary prosecutor has not filed an indictment. Here comes the big discrepancy. Sarafov, by virtue of the basic law, was obliged, after being aware of all this and having submitted such data to Kövesi, to carry out supervision and say why this was not properly institutionally activated. This is the strongest disciplinary ground that Yankulov has managed to discover and defend before SJC. The remaining several elements are related to the violation of ethical norms, which is also a reason for initiating this disciplinary proceeding", he commented. According to him, these are very strong arguments, well supported by facts:
"Now I don't know how the SJC prosecutorial college or the plenum, which is the competent body to elect and dismiss the acting prosecutor general, will get away with it. If it does, this will be a rather interesting yet another violation of the rule of law - such as it exists".
The rules should not allow the entrenchment in the court and the prosecutor's office of interdependence, mutual assistance and solidarity, which moved from the prosecutor's office to the court, Ivan Bregov was categorical in an interview for the program "Nedelya 150". According to him, the independence of the judiciary should be ensured only after a thorough examination of the moral, and then the professional qualities of the judges and prosecutors. In his words, if a mechanism for change must be sought, it is the empowerment of the prosecutorial college, so that it is stronger in relation to the Prosecutor General:
"Either more judges should be included, or more public quota - a solution could be sought in these two directions. What is possible, without touching the basic law, are the measures of the criminal process, with much stronger judicial control over the actions of the prosecutor's office, and again publicizing those for demonopolization of the prosecution".
Where to go is a question that must be derived from the professional solidarity of people in the judiciary, the legal expert was categorical. According to him, there is some understanding that limited judicial control when measures were adopted in the Code of Criminal Procedure - both to satisfy the deficits in the prosecutor's office and to relieve the court.
Professionalism in the system is not lacking, but the people in the system who want to defend it, they do not receive sufficient guarantees that they will be protected, he noted.
"Is there an institutional mechanism that would protect people in the system who maintain high professional standards and high ethical standards? If we do not have one, we must look for a mechanism that would make it traceable who is responsible if information about a reported incident is leaked. If this mechanism can be developed, this is a solution that does not mean piling up new institutional bodies".
According to him, the SJC now does not guarantee the institutional and professional independence of judges, prosecutors and investigators, but is becoming an "instrument for distributing internal influence between separate circles in the judiciary - some of which are personal dependencies".
Bregov emphasized that this SJC is trying to push forward the appointment of new judges to the SAC, as well as a new administration. This will cost Bulgarian taxpayers 2 million leva, he calculated. According to him, if these funds are spent in a different way, they can still be for justice, but strengthen it institutionally.
"Political influence in the judiciary is what corrupts it from the outside. But the judiciary does not have an immune response to the very circles and dependencies of solidarity within itself," the expert commented.
"I am skeptical about whether we should return to the anti-corruption bodies, or should we put the focus back on the prosecutor's office and the court," he pointed out.
Bregov does not admire that the decisions will come from the outside. These must be our conscious actions, he is categorical and added that we must start from there.
The legal expert is not optimistic that the next National Assembly will have the will to seriously address the problems in the judicial system.