Someone is threatening prosecutors to vote for a certain candidate for the Supreme Judicial Council.
We first learned this from the Association of Prosecutors in Bulgaria, which on September 8 published a position behind the slogan “The Supreme Judicial Council is not elected with fear“. It claims that members of its management board had received information about pressure on prosecutors and administrative leaders. Threats of future disciplinary and personnel actions, removals, media attacks and compromising materials were described. Appointments, promotions and positions were promised in exchange for support. It was implied that the election was “secure”, and those who refused to cooperate would suffer consequences.
This is detailed enough to cause alarm, and vague enough not to allow for verification.
A few days later, the Minister of Justice, Nikolay Naydenov, announced that a signal of influence on the election had been received through the channel created by the ministry. The sender was a candidate for the Supreme Judicial Council. The signal would be forwarded to the “competent authorities”. The minister refused to name the author, did not indicate who the signal was against, and did not say which facts he found serious enough to speak publicly. However, we know that the minister finds it serious, but only if what is written in it is true.
This condition is essential. If the signal is credible, a candidate who campaigns with threats, promises and pressure should bear all the consequences foreseen, including his participation in the election. We begin to worry about whether and how quickly this will happen and to produce expectations for a quick check, protection of the prosecutors involved and clear information about the measures taken, so that the guilty party is not hidden behind the secrecy of the procedure.
However, we still do not learn who is threatening, whom he threatened, when, where and with what words. We do not know whether it is direct testimony, retold rumors or assumptions. We do not even know whether the signal is true.
But we are already setting ourselves up against one of the 25 candidates and starting to calculate which of them could be the perpetrator. The unknown accusation has already received two amplifiers: a professional organization and a minister of justice, whose authority gives it a sense of seriousness.
What if there are actually no facts?
This mechanism has a name: information laundering through institutional legitimation.
The rumor starts without a name – on forums, social networks, corridors. An organization provides it with a platform. A candidate turns it into a “signal“. An institution refers it to another state body and publicly gives it seriousness. If a file is opened, the news will already state that a candidate for the Supreme Judicial Council is “officially being vetted“. Then “informed sources“ will speak. In the end, the procedure will remain in the foreground, and the question of where the story started and with what evidence will sink.
Similar separation of information from its source, context and evidentiary value is observed on other sensitive topics. In the case of “Petrohan“ reasoning, presented as conclusions from an expert, was recognized as arbitrary versions about the personal life, relationships and behavior of the deceased. They do not follow from clearly established facts, but affect the memory of the dead, their relatives and possible victims. The institutional origin of the information began to give apparent weight to these “versions“, without anyone being able to counteract - those affected are dead or are children.
The cases are different. The trick is similar: once the information passes through an institution, the public begins to accept it as truth, even though no one has proven anything yet.
The mechanism has already been described from the inside
In the summer of 2023, Borislav Sarafov told the newspaper “Sega“ how, in his opinion, a similar mechanism operated in the prosecutor's office under Ivan Geshev. According to him, the prosecutor's press center prepared custom publications for certain media outlets and fictitious signals from non-existent individuals. The publications and signals then served as a formal basis for prosecutorial checks against targeted people.
According to Sarafov, first the occasion is fabricated, and then the same institution refers to it to start an inspection. The news is now the inspection itself. Who created the occasion and why remains a mystery.
There is no public information whether the practices described by Sarafov have been checked, stopped and followed by organizational or personnel measures.
Sarafov's claims do not prove that today's signal was created in the same way, but they raise some questions - since such technology has been applied from the highest level in the prosecutor's office, where are the guarantees that it will not continue to be applied in elections for the body that decides on prosecutorial appointments, promotions and disciplinary liability?
Therefore, institutional restraint is mandatory. Instead, we received a public announcement of an accusation without an accused, without a publicly known victim, without facts and without an opportunity to respond, but also without the possibility of the actual perpetrator being suspended from the competition.
After presenting complaints, the APB also owes some answers
The Prosecutors' Association states that it is not campaigning against anyone. At the same time, its position describes an almost complete and potentially compromising plot about serious violations attributed to an unnamed candidate.
Where does the story come from and which of the people who brought it to the board of directors personally heard the threats? Were specific signals submitted before the publication of the position, or did the organization disseminate unverified stories? To which body was the data sent and what exactly could have been verified in it?
The silence on these issues leaves the suspicion that the position is preparing the public environment for a subsequent blow.
APB must also answer how it guaranteed its own non-interference in the elections. Two of its deputy chairmen are candidates for the Supreme Judicial Council. A member of the management board is the daughter of a third candidate. Did these individuals participate in the discussion and adoption of the position? Did they deviate from the organization's decisions that could influence the campaign? Is there a protocol from which this can be established?
Referring to organizational independence is not enough when leaders have a direct electoral interest. A demonstrable procedure is needed that excludes the use of the association's authority in favor of some candidates and to the detriment of others.
The Minister is already participating in the campaign
The Minister has the right and obligation to forward a signal to a competent authority. Its public disclosure before the verification is a separate decision, which hastened to turn an unverified signal into national news and raised the question - how will the Minister protect the electoral process from the consequences of a publicized, but possibly unproven or long-pending accusation?
If the verification does not establish anything, will this be reported with the same publicity? Will we find out when it ended, what the result was and was there any evidence of a violation at all? Or will only the first news remain - that a “serious” signal was filed against an unnamed candidate?
Here we see the main risk. The sender may remain unknown. The person being investigated may also not be officially named. Meanwhile, “leaked information” will be circulating in the professional community about who he is and what he is being investigated for. The person will be recognizable to his constituents, but he will not have an official accusation to respond to. In the event of a public reaction, he will be told that he himself recognized himself in an unnamed signal. In the event of silence, the rumor will move without resistance.
In the meantime, everyone wonders who is the one who anonymously accuses his opponent behind a curtain, while state and professional institutions spread the accusation for him, and the accused - one or more - bears the rumors in front of the entire professional community. Confidentiality may be justified within the framework of the investigation, but its public disclosure obliges the institutions to provide sufficient information about the subject, the guarantees of impartiality, and the result. In the pre-election environment, this creates inequality.
And an ideal construction for a reputational blow: a public stain without a public author and without an object of protection.
Society expects future members of the Supreme Judicial Council to distinguish themselves from the previous practices of behind-the-scenes and insidious pressure. This implies that the submitter will come to light and shed light on his allegations.
The rules of the Supreme Judicial Council leave the door open
The election rules prohibit negative campaigning against another candidate. However, they do not regulate a quick and independent procedure for verifying compromising information disseminated through a signal, professional organization or institutional statement. There is no clear deadline, competent authority, right of reply and obligation to announce the result before the vote.
Therefore, the Supreme Judicial Council must say how it will defend the election if an unverified accusation is made against a candidate. Will it establish who the source is, is there an electoral interest, and are the individual public actions coordinated? Will it ensure an immediate right of reply and a decision before the indictment has fulfilled its purpose?
A check completed after the election will not fix the tainted vote. An excuse after a lost reputation also does not restore the situation before the coup.
The APB, the minister, the SJC, and the notified bodies have a responsibility to establish the truth and not allow their procedures to conceal real pressure or be used as a laundromat for compromising material.
Otherwise, the question will no longer be who threatened prosecutors.
It will be who uses the institutions to make prosecutors fear their election.