Author: Emi Baruh
The arrest of Varna Mayor Blagomir Kotsev, municipal councilors from "Continuing Change" (PP) Yordan Kateliev and Nikolay Stefanov, and businessman Ivaylo Marinov shocked the public and brought thousands of people to the streets, who declared "We are not afraid!". The protesters demanded that the law be respected and that the strictest measure "detention in custody" be abolished. Last night, the Sofia Court of Appeals remanded the mayor and the two municipal councilors in custody. Are we living in a time of electoral justice? How would you describe what is happening now?
Mikhail Ekimdzhiev: What we are observing is not just a creeping restoration, like during the time of Tsvetanov, of the early GERB, when political opponents were more of an exception. Now we are seeing a targeted dismantling of the opposition. This began with the seizure of Dogan's party by Delyan Peevski. Successive, targeted, strategic attacks were carried out on DPS activists - mayors, deputies, deputy chairmen of the party.
The same strategy was applied in the attempts to eliminate the Sofia district mayors from GERB. Insignificant administrative inaccuracies were used: for example, people submitted an application for deregistration from the companies in which they participated when they ran for mayor, but somewhere these applications have not yet been technically reflected… Now the heavy artillery has been brought in with the prosecutor's office, which - as all informed people know - is under the care of Mr. Peevski.
I will define what is happening at the moment with the following question: if Peevski, through the "dwarf" Sarafov - from the fairy tale about the 8 dwarves - can at any time eliminate a mayor or a member of parliament for whom we voted, what is the point of voting? Why should we vote, since our choice can be replaced by Peevski, by Borisov and the institutions they have conquered?
"We are heading towards an authoritarian regime like Erdogan in Turkey"
All this is not only extremely dangerous for representative democracy, it makes it meaningless. We are heading towards an authoritarian regime like Erdogan in Turkey. There, in the same way, political opponents, opposition mayors are eliminated through the security institutions, through fabricated processes. This is extremely dangerous.
During the early GERB, there was a clean-up of businesses, of criminal areas, while here we have a clear focus on the political opposition. When representative democracy is torpedoed in this way, not only the political environment is distorted, but a danger is also created for the market economy. And these are the two pillars of the rule of law - market economy and political pluralism. In addition, we risk losing billions in European funding, which is already made dependent on the rule of law in the member states.
What we have written in the basic law - that Bulgaria is governed according to the Constitution and laws - is also rendered meaningless. It is quite obviously governed by the whims of Mr. Peevski and Mr. Borisov. And it is not by chance that I put Mr. Peevski in the first place.
The attempt to normalize justice was a failure
You are talking about a parallel state in which not the law, but arbitrariness decides which case is heard where and by whom. Why was the case against the Varna mayor transferred to the Sofia City Court (SCC)?
Mihail Ekimdzhiev: The answer is very clear. A few years ago, when the specialized court was disbanded, instead of being subjected to loyalty tests, re-selection, and some of the specialized judges and prosecutors being tried for outright crimes in office and abuse of power, they were simply moved to a more prestigious building - that of the Courthouse. They did not bear any responsibility for a number of flagrant violations that they had committed. Nothing bad happened to them. The attempt to normalize justice was a failure. It doesn't happen simply by disbanding the institution. The entire horde of specialized judges, half of whom should already be in prison, administer justice in the SCC.
Jurisdiction in criminal cases is imperatively enshrined in the Criminal Procedure Code. When it is not respected, this leads to incompetence of the bodies that carry out the investigation - in this case the SCC and the SGP. Which means that it is legally invalid from the first to the last procedural action. Knowing that they are not competent, they deliberately act outside the law.
How can society demand accountability from judges?
There is no direct way. If the parliament and the parliamentary opposition survive, this can be done through laws that would introduce liability for magistrates for actions that are a manifestation of either malicious intent or outright professional negligence - these are the criteria in the practice of European courts, where property liability of magistrates can be sought.
Another type of liability could also be introduced if we come to a change in the Constitution. But in order to seek criminal liability, we must have a truly free prosecutor's office, not a prosecutor's office subordinate to Mr. Peevski and Mr. Borisov.
The decision of the Sofia Court of Appeal from last night resembles a punitive action by the prosecutor's office against the judicial system. If, figuratively speaking, the law has been brought to its knees, what is the way out?
Mikhail Ekimdzhiev: If the legal forms have been exhausted, it seems that the only way is to resort to street pressure and this will lead to some change. Because seemingly, through formally legal mechanisms, the state is being taken over. This is the paradox: formally, everything is supposedly done according to the rules - supposedly we have independent prosecutors, supposedly we have independent courts, but they use their immunities to commit crimes against justice, and there is no mechanism against this. This is like an autoimmune disease. It starts working against the organism. And such situations most often end with the destruction of the living organism.
One of the witnesses withdrew his testimony, stating that they were taken under pressure, but he was not questioned again… What is the correct legal course of action, in your opinion?
Mikhail Ekimdzhiev: The first thing that should have been done was to immediately question him again in the open session on the measure of detention, where there can be no pressure.
The procedural consequences of any testimony given under pressure are that it must be ignored by an erudite and independent judge. From a criminal law perspective, the exercise of pressure is a crime against justice. Which must also be investigated and those who exercised it must be tried.
But when checking for the pressure exerted, the accused will check themselves. They will say that there is no such data. Because this pressure is exerted in closed rooms, in private, or in several pairs of eyes, but there is only one person who is threatened.
How does the pressure happen?
Mikhail Ekimdzhiev: He is told either you will testify against Blagomir Kotsev and remain a witness, or you will become his accomplice. This is the most common Faustian dilemma - whether to sell your soul in the name of some short-term imaginary procedural advantages, or to try to preserve your human dignity within yourself. At the risk of being a victim of this same machine that can crush you for years.
Both choices turn a person into a victim…
Mikhail Ekimdzhiev: These cases are not conducted to result in convictions. They are conducted in order to terrorize the targeted victims through prosecutorial arbitrariness, through detentions that sometimes last months and years, through various restrictions on traveling abroad - for treatment... etc.
The goal is to crush human dignity, to be depersonalized, and sometimes - if you cannot stand the harsh conditions in which you are placed, to make false confessions that will give some chance to the fabricated accusations and for them to survive in court.
What is the effect of all this?
Mikhail Ekimdzhiev: People suffer mental and moral trauma, leave politics, lose their businesses... The most terrible thing of all is to watch how a significant part of the uninformed and not particularly educated public applauds and enjoys this demonstration of babaitlik on the part of Peevski. This boosts his political rating, instead of reducing it, which would happen in a more normal country.
According to the data released from November last year, an investigation is underway against an unknown member of parliament.
Mikhail Ekimdzhiev: An investigation against a member of parliament whose immunity has not been lifted is a legal oxymoron. Immunity is enshrined in the Bulgarian constitution precisely to defend the integrity of members of parliament. The fact that he is allegedly being investigated without his immunity being requested compromises and dooms this process to failure. But obviously the prosecutors and judges are not put there to apply the laws and the constitution. They are told - detain Blagomir Kotsev, they detain him. Regardless of the constitution.
"Guarantors" are so unscrupulous
What will be the fate of this case? Do you predict that it will also reach the ECHR?
Mikhail Ekimdzhiev: "The sponsors" are so unscrupulous that they don't care about the ECHR, whose decisions come years later and only affect some procedural aspects, for example the legality of detention. So it is not excluded that after 10 years, for example, some small delay will come out that Blagomir Kotsev was acquitted and sentenced the state for several hundred thousand leva, which we will pay, not these magistrates who do with him, with our rights, with the constitution whatever they want.
They use different methods - the action was staged in the summer, when half of the people are either at sea, in the mountains, or outside the country and other horizons are in their sights. The right moment was chosen - our admission to the eurozone, the publication of the EC's sixth annual report on the rule of law. All this has been considered. But they had not considered how to dress this brutality in some form that is acceptable to some extent. We did not see magistrates explaining what they did, why they did it, responding to the criticism heard from all observers. They do not care!
Can you rank the legal absurdities that we are witnessing?
Mikhail Ekimdzhiev: I will immediately give an example of the position of the prosecutorial college of the Supreme Judicial Council from a week ago. The so-called "lice" - as their colleague Yordan Stoev put it in the recorded conversation with Geshev - decided that they had to interpret the amendment to the Judiciary Act, which stipulates that Borislav Sarafov cannot continue to perform the functions of Prosecutor General after July 21, 2025.
Interpretation of the legal norm is taught in the first year. In the theory of law. Interpretation is reached when the legal norm is unclear. If something is unclear, the reasons for the bill, the statements of the members of parliament during its discussion are read. In the amendment to the Judicial Power Act, adopted on January 21 of this year, there are both reasons and dozens of statements. Which show that the purpose of this norm is for Sarafov not to be acting Prosecutor General after July 21, 2025.
Well, are these people so ignorant that they do not understand what interpretative activity means? This again shows that they have neither professional qualities nor moral qualities, which is why they should collectively resign at their next meeting due to unsuitability. Because obviously the goal is not to interpret the will of the parliament, but to replace it in accordance with the instructions that have been given to them.
What happens if Sarafov continues to be in the same role?
Mikhail Ekimdzhiev: My appeal is that after July 21, 2025, when according to the law Sarafov must vacate the position he holds, every magistrate, judge, prosecutor, every citizen who is addressed in some form of an act of Borislav Sarafov, simply accept this act as null and void.
There are already judges who have ceased to comply with the acts of the Inspectorate of the Supreme Judicial Council, after the EU court said that due to the expiration of the mandate of the Supreme Judicial Council, it can no longer function.
We have a law that we have adopted, and we should act in accordance with the law.
Until July 21st is just a few days away…
The last norm for restoring law and order is civil disobedience. This is the only thing we have left.
Civil disobedience is a form of spontaneous restoration of the social contract when the representatives of the state have stopped fulfilling it. We see how various representatives of the state - judges and prosecutors, arrogantly, before our eyes, because they consider themselves unpunished, violate the Constitution and the law. This means that they violate our will as a sovereign. Since we have no legal mechanisms to restore this violated social contract, the only way is to stop fulfilling our obligations to the state and thus, through civil disobedience, try to restore law and order and the constitution. The procedures have already been exhausted.