We must be aware that this is not just a moral issue. This is a European legal procedure, which, God forbid, may end with a criminal procedure against Bulgaria for failure to meet the deadlines for introducing into national legislation such an important document as the Directive against "slap cases". Perhaps we need to repeat for the hundredth time - freedom of speech is the foundation of democracy. If we do not have freedom of speech, we cannot have public debate, we cannot have development. This was announced to Lili Marinkova in the studio "FACT" and the program "Conversation" by lawyer Alexander Kashumov.
„Unfortunately, in Bulgaria we have a serious problem. There are people, especially when they hold political or business positions, who believe that they can avoid investigations against themselves through a variety of legal means. That is why this directive against "slaps" cases is there. In recent years, there have been several scandalous circumstances in Bulgaria. The first is that we had the opportunity to be the first country in the European Union to introduce this directive, because the first working group was established back in December 2023, even before the directive was adopted, when Atanas Slavov was the Minister of Justice. In the working group, we were ready even before the deadline for the introduction of the directive expired - with proposals for changes to the Civil Procedure Code. Unfortunately, nothing happened for more than a year," the lawyer added.
“Let's assume that some texts were agreed upon. They were finally ready at the end of December 2024. The work was completed, but again it did not reach adoption. It was only during the caretaker government, when Minister of Justice was Andrey Yankulov, the procedure was completed and the public discussion began, which was subsequently taken over by the new government. To this day, we have not seen any real action on the issue, which is why we came up with a common position, with which we insist that the law be adopted as soon as possible“, said lawyer Kashumov.
See more of the conversation in the VIDEO.