The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) confirmed the refusal of the Judicial College of the Supreme Judicial Council (SC of the SJC) to initiate disciplinary proceedings against a judge for her comments about infidelity in a judicial act that became publicly known. The main reasons for this are that, on the one hand, the statute of limitations for initiating disciplinary proceedings has expired, and on the other hand - the judge's judicial activity is assessed only through instance control, writes news.lex.bg.
The case is related to the judge from the Pleven district court Svetla Zamfirova. On April 29, 2025, she ruled on a dispute about parental rights and in the reasons for the decision she wrote The following: “Marital adultery is a capital crime and is prosecuted and punished by law under Roman law“.
She then refers to the practice in the United States: “According to a law of 1907, adultery is still a crime in the state of New York, the text has not been dropped to this day.
Adultery is treated as a crime in several American states such as Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Michigan, although charges in court are rare, and convictions - even more so. The legal texts are left over from the time when adultery was still the only legal reason for divorce. According to New York law, the definition of adultery is a case in which “a person whose spouse is alive enters into intimate relations with another“. Adultery is also a relationship with a married man or with a married woman. Only a few weeks after the adoption of the law in 1907, a married man and a woman were arrested“.
On May 5 of this year, a lawyer filed a report about what was written in the act to the chairman of the RS-Pleven Vera Naydenova.
On May 20, 2025, parts of Judge Zamfirova's decision were published in the Facebook group “Legal Madness“.
Two days later, a second lawyer filed a report regarding the motives of Svetla Zamfirova.
The two reports were reviewed by the ethics commission of the Pleven District Court, which came to the conclusion that Zamfirova had tarnished the prestige of the judicial profession with what was written in the motives for the decision.
On February 3, 2026, the chairman of the RS-Pleven proposed to the Judicial collegium to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Zamfirova.
And on March 10 this year, the SC of the SJC refused for two reasons. One is that on January 10, 2026, the 6-month statute of limitations for initiating disciplinary proceedings against the judge expired. And the second - the personnel officers considered the proposal inadmissible because the factual grounds, which are indicated as a violation of the code of ethics, fall within the scope of judicial independence and cannot be qualified as a violation of official misconduct or a violation of the code.
The head of the RS-Pleven Vera Naydenova challenged the decision of the collegium before the SAC. However, a three-member panel with chairman and rapporteur Nikolay Gunchev and members Irina Kyurteva and Stella Dincheva rejected the appeal.
The Supreme Judges noted that the decision of the SC of the SJC was motivated, the statute of limitations was correctly calculated and it has actually expired.
„The six-month period begins to run from the date of knowledge by one of the bodies and persons under Art. 312, para. 1 of the JSA, is not interrupted and does not run separately for each of them. According to Art. 310, para. 3, clause 2 of the JSA, in the event of a violation that harms the prestige of the judiciary, the periods under para. 1 begin to run from the disclosure of the act outside the bodies of the judiciary (in this context, contrary to the opinion of the appellant, it is of no legal significance for the date of discovery of the violation when the chairman of the district court received the opinion of the CPE). In this case, the SC of the SJC has studied and taken into account the periods in which Judge Zamfirova was on statutory leave, and arithmetically correctly calculated that the 6-month period for initiating disciplinary proceedings, counted from the date of disclosure of the act outside the bodies of the judiciary, began to run no later than 22.05.2026 (the decision of Judge Zamfirova and the reasons therein gained wide publicity after its publication on Facebook), which means that as of the date of the proposal of the administrative head of the Pleven District Court, this period had expired“, writes the Supreme Administrative Court.
The Supreme Court judges noted that the fact that there is another independent ground for inadmissibility of the proposal of the head of the Pleven Regional Court is of essential importance. “Within the framework of functional immunity (Art. 132 of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria) is the activity of the judge in the exercise of his judicial function (Art. 117, para. 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria), which can be assessed only by means of superior judicial control (instance or extraordinary). The incorrect interpretation and application of the substantive, or procedural law, cannot be grounds for engaging a judge in disciplinary liability“, the Supreme Administrative Court stated.
The ruling is not final and is subject to appeal before a five-member panel of the court.
What disciplinary punishment? It is not bad to have a psychiatrist screen the judges. There have been too many cases of mentally deviant people.
Yes, that's how women judges look in the eyes of society.
The group is right in the case of “Legal Madness“. Is it madness, stupidity, judges should be careful what they write in their acts, because a lot of people read them. And they take an example.
To me, it smells like “AY“. 😉
That's all that's left…
This is crazy work.
They don't care about a spilled basin
Did I get something wrong? Isn't it 1368, for example? What kind of infantility
That's it. I'm against it in principle, but such extremes in court are idiotic. He cheated on me – to be in prison…
Nonsense.
With these pseudo-Christian values that Miryanovo's son and our Russian puppet priest profess, I'm not surprised that such judges would appear. It would be a great shame if the cheating was committed by a woman. Right… Because how else. Medieval nonsense
That's how it is
Hahahahs
However, look at what Facebook does, gossiping for some reasons can blow your head off if they think they're being publicized on the internet by "well-wishers" seeking sensationalism.
YOU have said it more than clearly and since the person V.P. from the SRC can freely comment and provide qualifications on historical doctrines and trends in politics, I see no reason for this magistrate to be restricted in expressing his arguments.