Lawyer Ekimdzhiev before FACTS: I am ready to bet that Sarafov will be elected chief prosecutor

The decision of the Constitutional Court regarding the changes to the Constitution that were adopted continues to be a much commented topic. Do we have a "double standard" that was applied to the judiciary and on the other hand to the presidential institution… Lawyer Mihail Ekimdzhiev spoke to FACTS on the subject.

- Lawyer Ekimdzhiev, what will result from the decision of the Constitutional Court. What judicial reform can we talk about…
- Judicial reform was stillborn since December last year, when the sixth amendment to the Constitution was adopted. Even then, it was clear that the main goal of Borisov and Peevski - as co-initiators of this fictitious and illusory constitutional amendment - was to keep their cadres in the leadership of the judicial system, in the prosecutor's office, in the regulators, in which they had invested for years. These are people who are paid without a murmur. I am referring specifically to provisions and texts from the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Constitution, which expressly declared that the composition of the SJC, of the KPCONPI will remain unchanged for at least another six months, while the changes to the Law on the Judiciary are expected to be adopted, and up to 9 months to the new members of the SJC will also be elected. Even then it became clear, because we all know the following - when it comes to changes in the law, they can be made not in six months, but in literally six minutes. That's how much lobbying and pro-corruption texts are pushed - most often between the first and second reading. Then, God knows why, they needed six months for changes to the Judiciary Act and nine months for the election of new members of the SJC. Even then, it became clear that it is very important for the majority, who supported this amendment and addition to the Constitution, that nothing significant should happen in these 6, respectively 9 months. That way, there will be no cracks and upheavals, so that Borisov and Peevski's people will start to worry that they might be eliminated. Everything just had to be under their control. As we have seen, they were able to overthrow Ivan Geshev in a few days, but everything had to depend on them. They want to determine the president of the Supreme Administrative Court, to determine who will be the new chief prosecutor. I can bet it will be Boryslov Sarafov and so on. So even then it was clear that this delay had some ulterior motive. It has now become clear what the hidden goal is for these six months. When those 6 months were up, these same people put their “Trojan horses” in the Constitutional Court. Now, with this unfortunate decision of the Constitutional Court, the stillborn judicial reform was buried.

- Where was Hristo Ivanov then in this whole scheme?
- I don't like the position of Hristo Ivanov and PP in this whole scheme. But Hristo Ivanov, as if he had no choice but to believe again - as he did in 2015, but even then he was told that this time judicial reform could happen.

- In 2015, Hristo Ivanov was the Minister of Justice?
- Hristo Ivanov then became a minister so that in this capacity he could try to push these same ideas - for a stronger judicial system, for an independent judicial system, etc.

Without a strong judicial system, the fight against corruption cannot be fought.

This is a priori clear. What happened now, I can sum it up in one sentence - another victory of healthy forces against common sense.

- Why did the Constitutional Court take so long with the decision?
- They delayed, in my opinion, so much because of some bargaining, because they have a resource to draw benefits in an institutional and personal plan. There was some bidding for specific judges, for specific votes, for specific quorums. I think it is no accident that they split 6 to 6 on the question of the caretaker government and the powers of the president.

- But that's how they let the president work on the “home book”.
- This is the first, but there is a subtlety here. If they had declared these changes unconstitutional – sample vote 7:5, if they had repealed the changes, it meant that this issue could never be brought before the Constitutional Court by anyone. And now there is no solution…

This means that the president can literally sit down today and write, or someone else, a new request, but with slight changes in the nuances of the argumentation.

And so the question can be asked again. If it were up to me, I would request a position from all members of the Constitutional Court to rule on a procedural issue. Namely - is it permissible for Desislava Atanasova, who actively participated in the adoption of the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Constitution, to participate in the decision of the Constitutional Court and to vote. This, in itself, does not meet basic legal standards for the independence and impartiality of any judge, let alone in the Constitutional Court, which must ultimately meet these standards. Here is the result of the bargain. So, on the one hand, the president will continue to work on the “home book”, as you said, but on the other hand, he is given the opportunity to repeat this request when he sees fit. And in a slightly different political climate, our cheerleaders in togas at the Constitutional Court may change their minds.

- Did we see more politics or law in these decisions of the Constitutional Court?
- I don't see law, I don't see morality. I see decisions based on expediency and the advancement of some personal, social, private interests. The political interests are also private, and all this has nothing to do with the public interest and the principles of law. I will go back in time in 2003, when another panel of the Constitutional Court adopted this insane decision #3 on the initiative of Nikola Filchev. With it, the judicial system was concreted, after it was accepted that substantial changes in the Constitution could only be made by the Grand National Assembly. Now I thought that the Constitutional Court had evolved in its understanding and was ready to overcome this stigma that anchored us somewhere at the end of the last century in those totalitarian legal dogmas, and now they further anchored us to this bottom. Even you – as a journalist, you will understand it, even though you are not legally encumbered, that the Constitution is first and foremost a living organism and a tool by which people can make their lives better in relation to modern conditions.

And we are dominated by the understanding that the Constitution is some kind of “sacred cow”,

that it must necessarily smell of mold, of mothballs, of formalin. This is done through the decisions of the Constitutional Court, and they are precisely what hinder our development. It is clear that our lives can only be improved by a more independent and stronger judicial system, which will reduce corruption to some acceptable limits for a European country and make our quality of life and our self-esteem better. Now we are crushed by the understanding that the state is not honorable, it is not fair to the people, that it allows our elected officials to steal from us. Thanks to this corrupt prosecutor's office and this inefficient court, we have now gotten away with this decision again.
Also, the shame of the Constitutional Court is evident from the poaching manner in which its decision was announced - on a Friday afternoon, on the last working day of the last week of July, so that it would reach as few people as possible and the constitutional judges would spare themselves criticism and the awkward questions. The European practice is exactly the opposite - the goal is maximum disclosure and clarification of the complex constitutional matter.