Dr. Valentin Saykov
Chairman of “Civil Initiative Bulgaria 2050“
The bomb that Delyan Peevski recently threw with the proposal to close the CPC was another stone in the swamp of Bulgarian political life. It stirred the stagnant and smelly water for a while and that was it. The unexpected move of the leader of the new beginning, who has so far successfully used the commission as a bat, was a ploy to blackmail allies and opponents. The heartbreaking cries that we will lose 5 million leva and the budget will go bankrupt clearly showed where the matter is going.
As of today, passions have calmed down. The Nomination Committee has admitted all four candidates for members of the CPC to participate and will hold their hearing on August 22. No matter how it ends, the deputies will have the final say. Given the current balance of power in the National Assembly, the result cannot be other than further strengthening the positions of the official and unofficial leaders of the government majority.
The latest saga with the CPC shows the failure of the principle of the separation of powers in our country. We know that corruption mainly inhabits the different levels of power. The higher the level, the more fed the beast of corruption feels. That is why the fight against it is so difficult both historically and geographically. Humanity has achieved almost one hundred percent success in eradicating polio and other terrible diseases, but it does not hope for a similar achievement in the fight against corruption, which, like leprosy, corrodes every society to a greater or lesser extent. However, susceptibility to this infection and the countermeasures against it vary greatly from country to country.
There are several factors that determine the more or less successful fight against corruption. The first of these is the separation of powers. The body that should prosecute and punish the corrupt cannot be subordinate to them. This is exactly the case in Bulgaria.
The election of the commission's members by a simple rather than a qualified majority in the National Assembly is a small step in the wrong direction. It is small because even a qualified majority is no guarantee of independence and effectiveness. It only makes the negotiations more complicated and extends the umbrella to more subjects in power and around it.
The inclusion of a nomination commission in the procedure is just throwing dust in people's eyes. Its work began with accusations of conflict of interest. Apart from the representative of the Supreme Bar Council, the other participants in it are nominated by state structures, whose heads are elected entirely or to a large extent by the deputies in parliament. The participation of Judge Kalin Kalpakchiev as a representative of the Supreme Court of Cassation will hardly be able to turn the game around. In addition, the members of the nomination committee assess the candidacies only on the basis of admissibility, that is, on a formal basis. They cannot pronounce on the factual suitability or public acceptability of the candidates. The committee does not select, screen and rank the candidates according to their qualities to achieve the highest results in their future work in the interest of society.
If we want to achieve maximum independence and efficiency, we must take the staffing in the anti-corruption sphere from those circles of power that are most susceptible to corruption. The current nomination committee, which serves more as a facade, should be replaced by a selection committee that would organize the widest possible, representative and transparent competition for the heads of the anti-corruption commission.
Who should be most interested in the successful work of the anti-corruption commission? First of all, these are those who are most often the target of extortion, namely representatives of business at all levels and from all sectors. Therefore, they should have a sufficiently large quota in the commission for nominating members of the anti-corruption body. Other trade unions should also be well represented, as well as non-governmental organizations with a proven presence in public life. In any case, representatives of the executive and judicial branches, if they participate at all, should be a minority in the selection committee. The nomination of candidates, their discussion and decision-making should take place in conditions of complete transparency.
A key question is to whom the selection committee will propose its nominees. For the separation of powers to work to the maximum extent, parties must be excluded from this process. Thus, the most logical solution is for the appointment to be made by the president, who will choose the most suitable ones from among the candidates proposed to him. Of course, there is a possibility that a future president will be a representative of the ruling majority, but even direct democracy has its limitations. It can be a corrective to representative democracy, but not a one hundred percent replacement for it.
If the described selection mechanism is adopted, the current large powers of the commission to investigate, detain, etc. can be preserved, because it is expected that it will be a baton not in the hands of one or another politician, but of the public interest.
The separation of powers will function even better if, instead of one super-commission, we have two or three bodies that, in addition to prosecuting the corrupt, will compete and to some extent control each other.
The same principle of nomination by a public selection commission and appointment by the president, regardless of who he is, can be applied to other important state bodies related to the spending of public funds and control over the proper functioning of the state administration. These include the State Financial Inspection Agency, the Agency for Public Enterprises and Control, the Public Procurement Agency, and the Executive Agency for Medical Supervision. The Consumer Protection Commission logically falls into this group. Let us not forget to add to this list the management of the Bulgarian Development Bank. Some form of public control over the security services, including the appointment of their heads, would also be beneficial. Of course, this must be done in compliance with national security requirements and without leaking state secrets.
Such a radical change will bring profound changes in the functioning of the state machine, increase citizens' trust in it, and help overcome people's accumulated disinterest in social processes. Moreover, for the effect to be as positive as possible, it must be part of the overall rewriting of the rules, that is, the Constitution and other basic laws. Only in this way can representative democracy, which is now suffocated by its facade double, be reanimated.
It is obvious that such a gigantic reconfiguration of public administration is beyond the capabilities, nor the desires, of today's failed party-political elites. To make sense, it must be accompanied by a restart of economic, social, demographic, etc. policies, therefore of the system as a whole. Such a task can only be accomplished by a new national round table with the participation of the best specialists in various fields, of people with proven morality, who would not look at their own selfish interests, but would draw a plan for our development with an eye on the interests of future generations.