Former Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev has sentenced the prosecutor's office to pay him compensation in the amount of nearly 130,000 euros for his years of service in the judiciary, the legal portal "Lex.bg" reports. The Sofia City Court (SCC) overturned the decision of the lower instance and accepted that Geshev has a full right to 20 gross salaries, rejecting the arguments that his dismissal from office is tantamount to disciplinary dismissal as an ordinary magistrate.
The case dates back to June 15, 2023, when the president signed a decree for the early release of Ivan Geshev due to undermining the prestige of the judiciary, provoked by the public use of the expression "political garbage". A day later, the former number one prosecutor initially requested to be reinstated as a prosecutor in the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office (SCP), but subsequently withdrew his request and resigned from the system.
The Prosecutor's Office refused to explicitly vote on his resignation on the grounds that after the presidential decree he had already lost his status as a magistrate. After a series of complaints to the Supreme Administrative Court, Ivan Geshev filed a lawsuit against the prosecutor's office due to the refusal of the then acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov to order the payment of 20 salaries due upon leaving. The exact amount claimed is 128,573.55 euros (equivalent to 251,468 leva), calculated on the basis of his monthly salary of 6,428.68 euros in 2023.
The main legal dispute in the case is whether the dismissal from the post of "Prosecutor General" automatically means "disciplinary dismissal" in his capacity as a judge/prosecutor, in which case the law prohibits the payment of compensation.
The magistrates of the Sofia City Court are categorical that the three big names in the judiciary lose their status only if they were not ordinary magistrates before their election. The court points out that "the reinstatement of administrative managers as ordinary magistrates does not occur automatically by virtue of the law, but is conditioned by a correspondingly stated request by them". Since Geshev explicitly withdrew his desire to continue working in the prosecutor's office, it is assumed that he is not a magistrate as of the date of the presidential decree.
In its reasoning, the Sofia City Court specifies that the early termination of the mandate of a chief prosecutor has more in common with the punishment of dismissal from a managerial position than with a complete disciplinary expulsion from the judicial system. The magistrates concluded that Geshev's failure to be reinstated as a regular prosecutor was a consequence of his own refusal to return to work, and not a direct consequence of the presidential decree.
Based on this, the appellate court ordered the prosecutor's office to pay the compensation sought for over 20 years of service. The decision is not final and is subject to appeal to the Supreme Court of Cassation.