In Bulgaria, there is apparently a new scale for “public danger“. If you are a district chief with charges of gangs, arson and drugs – you are dangerous until tonight, then you are safe and go home. If you are a mythical smuggler, who has been hiding for 20 years – safe again, once you have had enough of tea and treatment. The past is being erased, the memory of the institutions – too.
But if you are a mayor, a public figure, without a weapon, without escape, without 20 years of hiding – then you are a mortal threat to the state. Five months in prison, because somewhere in the case there is a bribe of patties and tea. This is clearly the height of organized crime.
If we analyze the public publications of recent months, a deep contradiction emerges in the way the Bulgarian judicial system assesses risk, public danger and the need for arrest. This contradiction can no longer be explained by a “case-by-case assessment“, but appears to be a sustainable pattern of selective law enforcement.
According to media publications, the head of the Fifth District Department – Plamen Maksimov – is being investigated on allegations of leading an organized group linked to arson and drug trafficking, as well as for contacts with underworld figures known by nicknames such as Zhelezara and Stuklarya. These are allegations that, by all classical criteria, fall into the category of “high public risk”. And yet, the arrest lasts symbolically – one day – then followed by release with the argument that there is no danger.
From an analytical point of view, the first key question arises here: how do institutions define “danger“ when it comes to a person with a long-standing position in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, professional contacts, inside information and alleged influence? If such a profile does not fall into the category of “risk to the investigation“, then the category itself loses its meaning.
The contrast becomes even sharper when the case of the mayor of Varna – Blagomir Kotsev is placed side by side. A public figure, with a permanent address, political responsibility and high recognition, which by definition makes it difficult to hide. And yet - a prolonged arrest, motivated by “public danger“, in a case of limited financial scale, at least according to publicly known information.
Here we are no longer talking about specific individuals, but about institutional logic. When, according to publications, a district chief with serious allegations about himself is treated as a minimal risk, and an elected mayor - as a threat to society, the problem is not in the individual case, but in the standard.
The analysis of these cases shows that arrest in Bulgaria increasingly functions not as a procedural measure, but as a tool for controlling the public narrative. In some - silent mitigation and quick release. In others - demonstrative severity and prolonged detention. This raises logical doubts that "public danger" is not measured by facts, but by institutional affiliation.
When the court and the prosecutor's office apply different yardsticks to similar or even incommensurable cases, trust in justice inevitably erodes.
In this sense, the call "it is time to erase justice and start over" is not emotional hyperbole, but an analytical conclusion about a system that has lost its most important quality - predictability. And when justice is unpredictable, it ceases to be justice and becomes an instrument of selective influence.