This week, Teodora Georgieva was punished with only a “reprimand“ by the European Prosecutor's Office, although she was found guilty of serious disciplinary violations. Against this background, Emilia Rusinova, who is associated with Pepi Euroto, and who heads the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office, once again retained her post after the Prosecutor's College failed to gather a quorum to consider the request for her removal. Is there an end to the scandals and compromising material in our judicial system and who is pressing the record button? Former city prosecutor Nikolay Kokinov and former I.F. Chief Prosecutor Boyko Naydenov.
"I would like to clarify that the Constitutional Court is not part of the judicial system. But in all three cases, we are talking about extremely important positions. The City Prosecutor's Office, which I also headed at the time, is responsible for all the most serious cases that are being conducted in the country - cases against ministers and cases of corruption at the highest levels of power". This was explained by Boyko Naydenov, the former acting chief prosecutor, who commented on the question of who has the brightest red light for problems in the judicial system against the backdrop of the scandals surrounding the head of the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office Emilia Rusinova, the European Prosecutor Teodora Georgieva and the constitutional judge Desislava Atanasova.
In his words, the City Prosecutor's Office is the most important state prosecution and therefore it is completely clear that for all players in the political field it is very important who will be its head. "In second place is the European Public Prosecutor's Office, which monitors the spending of European funds and possible violations and crimes in their use - funds that we know are of key importance for the Bulgarian economy. If you put your own person there, you practically control a large part of the cases that could threaten your interests," he emphasized.
What will follow from the allegations of the former Bulgarian European Prosecutor Teodora Georgieva about pressure being exerted on her
And he added: "The Constitutional Court is an emanation of the legal elite in our country. This is the highest place that a lawyer can occupy. And for there to be such a scandal there is also unacceptable. The judicial system has a huge problem that the public has no trust in it and over the years it has done nothing but destroy this trust instead of building it.
For his part, Nikolay Kokinov, the former city prosecutor of Sofia, emphasized that "he was personally surprised by the relatively modest punishment that our European prosecutor received." "For me, this is a minimal punishment - something like a yellow card. Probably, like any disciplinary punishment, it will be erased from the file in a few years. I expected something more serious and more authoritative, because for a magistrate to allow himself to bargain for such things with such lobbyists seems to me to be grossly unethical," he emphasized.
And he was categorical that the motive of the European Public Prosecutor's Office for punishing Georgieva - the expiration of her mandate - is not an excuse. "Whether she has a whole mandate ahead of her or a few months left, it doesn't matter. I do not believe that the gravity of the offense corresponds to the severity of the punishment", Kokinov emphasized.
From his position as a former city prosecutor, he also commented on the issue of what the current administrative head of the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office, Emilia Rusinova, should do, after two ministers of justice requested her removal. "This game of cat and mouse seems to me unworthy of both parties. It is evident that the current government, and in particular the Minister of Interior and the Minister of Justice, are doing everything possible for the city prosecutor to leave. As far as I understand the accusations, they are related to the fact that she traveled several times with the aforementioned Pepi Euroto. When you are clearly unwanted and the whole country is against you, I think the more dignified decision is to resign yourself," he pointed out.
In the words of Naydenov, "in this case, there are some dependencies and that keeps her in office." "Because hardly anyone would want to cause themselves such attacks from the executive branch. Two ministers of justice say that you should not be there. I do not understand this persistence in enduring such negativity," he said.