After the recent landmark scandals that have shaken the Bulgarian judicial system, the issue of its radical cleansing through an extraordinary inspection is becoming increasingly urgent. In an interview with FACTI, the candidate for the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) and Pleven District Prosecutor Vladimir Nikolov analyzes the limits and risks of such an extraordinary inspection.
After the “Eight Dwarfs“, “The Notary“ and the series of inconclusive institutional inspections, has the Bulgarian judiciary reached the point where vetting is necessary? Doesn't the very insistence on an extraordinary external review show that society has already lost confidence in the judiciary's ability to cleanse itself? How should this be established?
For me, the cases of the “Eight Dwarfs“ and the “Notary“ are deeply unacceptable. At the very least, they showed how vulnerable the judiciary can be when private networks gain access to personnel decisions, criminal proceedings and other public powers.
Since learning about them, I have consistently and persistently demanded public accountability for the development of investigations. As a prosecutor who does not have the authority to monitor them, it is my responsibility to publicly ask the questions that remain unanswered and not to accept institutional silence as a normal outcome. Like every citizen, I want to know whether dependencies, conflicts of interest, abuse of power and selective exercise of powers have been established. The deafening lack of a convincing result years later only makes the questions even more difficult and deepens the doubts that these phenomena are a sustainable factor in the management of the system and the way it protects society from crime.
The most serious consequence of this impotence is borne by the honorable magistrates. When doubt remains unclear, it is transferred to the entire system. I do not accept that the hundreds of judges, prosecutors and investigators who work professionally and conscientiously should pay with their reputation for addictions that the institutions cultivate in the dark. I also do not accept that a minority of people alien to the values of justice should use administrative power in key positions of power to prevent the system from working for the public good.
That is precisely why I am not a frivolous lover of extreme solutions without proven necessity. From a theoretical point of view, a wide-ranging vetting can only be justified in the event of a proven permanent takeover of the system and the inability of the usual means of control to cleanse it of foreign bodies. Any form of vetting, even the most limited, must be precisely tailored to a specific and real problem with a categorical and substantiated forecast of the expected result, including the possible risks, and with a clear assumption of responsibility for the consequences by those institutions that will carry it out.
Vetting is a very extreme and shocking measure, comparable to amputation or taking poisons, to combat life-threatening medical conditions for which there is no more sparing treatment. It itself has the consequence of weakening the independence and immune resistance of the judiciary against external takeover, reducing its capacity to do its job, risks of blocking entire parts of it, and a relatively long period of resuscitation. The public must at least be warned that the quality of justice will temporarily deteriorate and become even more upset even with a successful vetting, and agree to such a test. Separately, it is categorically unacceptable for vetting to conceal a change of the behind-the-scenes master.
The same considerations, but not with the same drama, also apply to a more limited vetting, aimed at key positions of power in the system or units in which conquest has been established. That is why the result of the investigations into the "Eight Dwarfs" and the "Notary" is strategically so important. It can directly show which positions and structures need increased scrutiny. Convincingly identifying the guilty parties and bringing them to justice would also prove that the mechanisms in place can break the dependencies, which would eliminate the need for extraordinary intervention.
Serbia is the constantly recalled bad example of how dangerous vetting can be, used as a mass personnel reshuffle without a clear diagnosis. In 2009, nearly 840 serving judges were not reappointed. The decisions were based on general motives, without prior hearings and without uniform application of the announced criteria. After the intervention of the Constitutional Court, 540 people, nearly 65% of those not appointed, were reinstated. When the vetting does not have convincing individual grounds, it can itself become an instrument for taking over the judiciary.
For the reasons stated, the subject of vetting should not be speculated upon. As a member of the Supreme Judicial Council, I would never support any type of vetting that serves as a means of retribution, personnel reassignment based on personal loyalty, or punishment for an independent professional position, or, in other words, a revanchist witch hunt or purge of the inconvenient. The goal is for the judiciary to have the ability to detect dependencies in time, establish personal responsibility, and protect honest magistrates.
In public discourse, “vetting“ means different things – from a property check to the dismissal and reappointment of all magistrates. How do you understand it?
Both the general public and professional circles are not familiar with the details of what exactly this method is. Veting is an extraordinary and independent check that establishes whether a magistrate possesses the necessary integrity, professional suitability and independence to continue exercising the public power entrusted to him. He must keep those about whom there are no doubts and release all the others. The property check is only part of the vetting. It can cover the correspondence between assets and income, conflicts of interest, undeclared dependencies, contacts with persons involved in trading in influence, unexplained career advantages and the way in which administrative, personnel and disciplinary powers have been exercised.
Veting does not have a uniform content. Its content and scope depend on the problem identified.
Albania has undertaken the most comprehensive reassessment in Europe after the official recognition of deep corruption and a severe loss of confidence in the judiciary. All acting judges and prosecutors have been checked for assets, integrity and professional suitability. As of March 2026, there were about 800 final results: approximately 350 magistrates were confirmed in office, about 280 were dismissed, and nearly 170 proceedings were terminated, including 114 after the resignation of the person being examined. This is a model for a complete overhaul of a system recognized as overwhelmed.
Moldova chose a more limited approach, the implementation of which is ongoing. The examination began with candidates for the bodies of judicial and prosecutorial self-government, and then covered certain magistrates and candidates for key positions. This model focuses the examination on the places from which the system is managed and influences the remaining magistrates. The preliminary examination of candidates for the bodies of judicial and prosecutorial self-government ended with a final result for 69 people: 26 passed and 43 did not pass the assessment. The separate commission for judges examined 69 out of a total of about 200 individuals referred to it in 2025: 30 passed. As of June 2026, the evaluation of 70 out of 190 referred prosecutors was completed, of whom 42 passed.
The numbers themselves clearly show the complexity of the process.
The judicial system has disciplinary liability, attestation, property control and criminal prosecution. Why does it still fail to recognize and break persistent addictions? What should be established before resorting to vetting?
In my opinion, these means are not exhausted, but they are fragmented, pursue different goals and do not provide a general picture of the resistance against addictions in the judiciary. Some of them are themselves instrumentalized to put pressure on inconvenient magistrates and control loyalty.
Among these powers, there are also some blind spots. When information is not systematically collected and compared with a view to monitoring the system of dependence, but only individual manifestations of individual magistrates are looked at, persistent dependence looks like a series of unrelated deviations. Thus, selective appointment, secondment or punishment can remain hidden behind formally legal individual decisions.
Therefore, a general assessment of the way in which these means have operated is necessary. That is why we need the results of the proceedings on the "Eight Dwarfs" and the "Notary", the subject of which is dependence.
Is it fair for every ordinary magistrate to prove his integrity from the beginning, when the greatest risk is associated with the places from which careers, disciplinary proceedings and sensitive cases are managed? From which positions should the enhanced scrutiny begin?
I categorically reject the presumption that all judges, prosecutors, and investigators are dishonest and should reapply for their positions.
The scrutiny must follow power and the risk of power. Greater power implies deeper and more frequent accountability.
I would discuss enhanced independent review as an operating regular and permanent mechanism for the positions with the greatest personnel, disciplinary and managerial power: the members of the SJC and the Inspectorate, the Prosecutor General, the presidents of the supreme courts and the heads of structures that allocate people and resources and control sensitive proceedings. Outside of these, the system must have the ability to react to any magistrate for whom there is specific evidence of dependency, conflict of interest, unexplained assets, abuse of power or selective exercise of powers.
The review must follow the power and the risk of power. Equality before the law does not require the same scope of review of the ordinary magistrate and the person who decides on appointments, promotions, secondments and disciplinary proceedings. Greater power implies deeper and more frequent accountability.
Veting as a last resort is permissible only if we are absolutely sure that the regular means are unsuitable or dysfunctional. I believe that the immune system of the Bulgarian judiciary can and will work. For this, it is necessary to take the right steps to comply with the law and professional ethics and to shed light on all unpleasant phenomena. In this way, we will prove to society, and to ourselves, that we can bear the responsibility for eliminating the negatives. In no case should the judiciary as a whole and the prosecutor's office in particular be vilified and demonized. The judicial system has enormous potential for upward development. The responsibility of the SJC in this process is key and a fundamentally different model of functioning is expected from its future composition.
Is it possible for the majority of prosecutors to be honest and yet the prosecutor's office to be conquered?
The majority of Bulgarian judges, prosecutors and investigators are honest, competent and hardworking. Corruption networks do not encompass them, but a limited circle of people who have managed to seize the key positions from which the system is managed. Institutional capture is recognized by the ability of a private interest to permanently direct the exercise of public power, and not by what proportion of the employees in the institution serve this interest.
The hierarchical structure of the prosecutor's office increases its vulnerability. And that is precisely why I believe that high demands should be placed on its independence.
The prolonged temporary occupation of a leadership position by acting leaders also accumulates power without the full legitimacy of a conducted competition and the limitations of the titular mandate.
In such an environment, pressure can operate through the expectation of a career reward, the fear of an adverse career impact, or the belief that professional dissent will have a personal cost.
The honorable majority protects itself by limiting the power that a few can exercise over it. The result should be a prosecutor's office in which the head organizes the work and is responsible for it, and the prosecutor decides the file or case according to the law, the evidence and his professional conviction, without calculating how the decision will affect his career.
What integrity test must a candidate for Prosecutor General pass before the SJC entrusts him with the highest position in the prosecutor's office? Are you ready for the same standard to be applied first to you and to the other candidates for members of the SJC?
The Prosecutor General has the greatest concentration of managerial and institutional power in the prosecutor's office. His behavior determines the attitude towards professional dissent, the way in which socially significant cases are conducted, and the ability of prosecutors to exercise their powers without pressure. Integrity should be a prerequisite for eligibility for this position. Professional training and a well-written concept cannot compensate for established dependence, abuse of power, or lack of managerial maturity.
The lessons of the recent past require us to clearly state what kind of Prosecutor General Bulgaria should not elect again. I find unacceptable a candidate who understands leadership as personal command; replaces legal arguments with aggressive public rhetoric; insinuates guilt before the court pronounces a verdict; allows selective disclosure of materials from proceedings; involves the prosecutor's office in political clashes; presents criticism of himself as an attack on the entire institution; divides the professional community according to personal loyalty and perceives accountability as a limitation of independence. A prosecutor general whose press office fabricates compromising material or conceals violations is unacceptable. Participation in high-profile investigations, media recognition, and rapid growth in the hierarchy do not prove the ability to lead the prosecutor's office.
In my assessment, his professional biography, public statements, attitude towards the court and other authorities, management decisions, use of secondment, disciplinary initiative and internal official control, reactions to evidence of pressure and his ability to defend a prosecutor who expressed a justified professional disagreement would be important. It should be checked whether the candidate has applied the same rules to everyone, whether he has taken responsibility for failures and whether he is able to admit and correct his own mistake.
Before the opening of nominations, the SJC should adopt and publish a job profile and uniform evaluation rules. The integrity check should be an independent stage preceding the comparison between candidates and be carried out by examiners independent of the people who put forward the candidacies and of the candidate himself. Established dependence, abuse of power or unreliability of the declared circumstances must terminate participation in the procedure.
The check must cover property and income, conflicts of interest, relationships that create a risk of dependence, the reliability of the declarations and the way in which the candidate has exercised the power granted to him. Any doubt must be specified and verified, the candidate must be given the opportunity to respond, and the result must be publicly and individually motivated.
Yes, I am ready for the same standard to be applied to me first. A council elected under lower integrity requirements does not have the credibility to evaluate the future Prosecutor General. I will provide the necessary documents and answer every specific question about my professional biography, property, management decisions and possible conflicts of interest. I would not request a check for another candidate that I am not ready to accept for myself.
Unexplained property leaves visible traces. How is a dependency, manifested through career favor, informal loyalty, or controlled inaction, proven? Where is the line between permissible professional contact, reasonable suspicion, and mere hearsay?
Dependency leaves traces in decisions, their consistency, and the benefits they produce. It is not proven by a single suspicious circumstance, but by a recurring pattern.
Career favoritism is recognized when a decision in favor of a certain circle is followed by an unusually rapid promotion, secondment, appointment or protection from disciplinary liability, and a different standard is applied to other magistrates in similar circumstances.
Informal loyalty is evident from the persistent consideration of someone else's interest, especially when the magistrate takes a professional and reputational risk without a convincing official explanation, and subsequently receives support or an advantage.
In controlled inaction, it is checked how similar cases were resolved, whether obvious evidence was collected, whether deadlines were met, whether the team was changed, whether work was interrupted without explanation and who benefits from the delay. A series of inexplicable favors, followed by decisions in favor of the same circle, already requires an explanation.
The boundary is clear: the professional contact has a clear official reason and can be explained openly. Reasonable doubt begins with a specific verifiable fact.
This way, real dependencies can be revealed, without suspicion or deliberate compromising material becoming a tool for pressure on the independent magistrate.
Vetating requires a legislative, and in a certain model, a constitutional basis. What can you actually do as a member of the SJC even before such a regulation is adopted? What specific results at the end of the mandate will make it possible to judge whether the dependencies are limited?
The SJC has enough powers to stop being a tolerant observer of the problems. I will insist that the SJC, within the first 100 days of its mandate, present a public baseline report on delayed competitions and attestations, secondments, prolonged tenure of senior positions, disciplinary practices, staffing shortages, and identified integrity risks. Without such a credible initial picture, any reform remains without a measurable goal, and at the end of the mandate, anyone will be able to declare success or failure without proving it.
I will insist that decisions on appointments, promotions, secondments and disciplinary liability are based on previously known criteria with a predetermined weighting. This will prevent them from being subsequently adjusted to the biography of a previously favored candidate and will allow objective competition between candidates. Data on secondments and temporary management must be collected in an accessible public register. Competitions need a public timetable and tracking of the reasons for any delays. In the event of evidence of conflict of interest, external pressure or use of administrative power for personal gain, the SJC owes a timely inspection and a clear response.
At the end of the mandate, the result must be visible in numbers: how many management positions are temporarily occupied, how long the competitions and attestations last, how the SJC has reacted to established cases of pressure and conflict of interest, whether the unexplained differences in workload, pay, career development and disciplinary practice have decreased.
Any vetting in itself does not prove a limitation of dependencies. Success will be achieved when the way the system functions and the management model guarantee that the professional development of the magistrate is determined by his or her qualities and work, and not by proximity to the administrative authority or other loyalties.