The budget of the judicial system is huge, but perhaps the most scandalous is the increase in the SJC budget. In 2025, they had about 85 million leva available, and now they have requested 98 million - but in euros! And here I am thinking - are they making fools of us? They either cannot count, and do not realize that this new budget, which is in euros, is over 190 million leva - a two-fold increase over last year's. And we are only talking about the SJC! He announced this to Lili Marinkova in the studio “FACTI“ and the show “Conversation“ lawyer Petar Slavov.
„Regarding the other institutions within the judiciary - the prosecutor's office, the Supreme Court - there is also an increase in the budget, but it is within 10-15%. Something that could be justified by an increase in the "Salary" fund, inflation, objective processes. But to ask for twice as much budget when your mandate in the SJC has expired... That's more than enough for me“, added the guest.
„We know that the Court of Justice of the EU came out with a decision that judicial panels with expired mandates - the Inspectorate to the SJC and the SJC itself - cannot make decisions. And this means that they cannot work. And so the question arises: what exactly will the SJC work on to get a larger budget - twice or more? I will say again that I have the feeling that they are making fools of us. We heard Magdalinchev say that these are incomes within the framework of the law. This is a very convenient excuse, because we know many cases in which what appears to be legal is not always moral“, the lawyer also announced.
“And I will give you a specific example - with the resort complex “Elenite“ and the construction madness that we saw there. We see how it was both legal, but we also saw that it is not done that way. And now - let us think about the topic here. This excuse that it was legal does not seem to me to be sustainable. Moreover, it is debatable. Excuse me, but in my opinion it should be embarrassing for them - the majority in the Supreme Judicial Council, which voted for this money“, explained Petar Slavov.
See more of the conversation in the VIDEO.