The Institute for Market Economy presented a new online platform that for the first time visualizes detailed data on the state of the judicial system in our country, revealing that Bulgaria allocates the largest share of its gross domestic product to justice among all countries in the European Union.
According to the head of the Law Program of the Institute for Market Economy Ivan Bregov, trust remains the only real resource of the judiciary.
„This is what citizens assign to justice and this is the strongest measure of the work of a system. If people do not trust, then there is a problem. The idea of our effort is to support the process in which the problem is identified. It is evident from the fact that there is a particularly low workload in a number of district and administrative courts, as well as in military courts”, Bregov explained to NOVA.
He added that our country ranks second in Europe in terms of the number of supreme judges. “The problems affect from the lowest to the highest level and a comprehensive solution must be sought”, the expert commented.
The data in the platform covers the period from 2012 to 2024 and show a constant increase in costs for the entire judicial process.
”The number of people in the system is the same as the number of magistrates or has increased slightly. The number of administration has increased over the years, including the administration of the Supreme Judicial Council, which is not related to judicial activity and administrative services. The budget of the judiciary has doubled since 2015, and thus the price of a case has increased,” said Ivan Bregov.
He compared the situation to a cash register, which clearly shows how taxpayers finance this state activity. “The budget of the judiciary has doubled - from over 255 million euros to 500 million euros”, pointed out the representative of the Institute for Market Economy.
The analysis also highlights the huge disparities in the workload of individual magistrates. While a judge in the Administrative Court in the city of Smolyan hears less than 10 cases per month, his colleague in the capital takes on over 35 cases under almost the same working and pay conditions.
“If one court is under-burdened and another is over-burdened, it may turn out that where there are overburdened courts, an opportunity is created for the secondment of judges. Secondment is a test of whether you are loyal in certain cases and it distorts the competitions afterwards. In recent years, it has been seen that those who have been seconded then win the titular position. And thus conditions are created for judges who work under high workloads to not be able to receive professional development. In other words, this is a tool for influence”, Bregov is categorical.
The aim of the project is to limit external influence on ordinary judges by publishing objective data and to create adequate conditions for their work. “Thus, the long-standing problem of independence can be resolved through a series of operational actions that do not involve the zeal at the highest level, called constitutional amendments, which we witness periodically”, the expert concluded.