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Has the judicial system in Bulgaria improved?

The efforts and measures of the Bulgarian government aimed at combating organised crime and corruption, as well as at reforms in the judicial system, have been positively assessed by the majority of NATO members during the Geneva Human Rights Council’s annual review on Bulgaria. Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov presented a report before 45 countries. The positive assessment confirmed Brussels’ support for reforms in the Bulgarian judicial system - one that has made the EC continue monitoring the country for 4 year after Bulgaria joined the EU. It is a fact that there have been a lot of changes in the legislation in order to limit delays and make procedures easier. However, statistics show that Bulgarians have doubts in the judicial system, although 95% of the so-called regular trials in court end in guilty verdicts. The cases of high social and media interest, however, end in 95% acquittals. These are generally people, accused of being mafia bosses. What do Bulgarians who have experience with the judicial system think about justice? Have things become better? Radio Bulgaria made a brief survey among the people waiting in the corridors of the Court House in Sofia. None of the people asked, however, answered positively the question, despite legislation changes in the judicial system made during 2010, and supported by Brussels and Washington. According to 72-year-old engineer Kuzman Mechevski, people with power are not interested in changing the current situation.

“The issues in the judicial system will be difficult to solve,” he says. “They will try to do it fast, but this will not happen so easy. There re a number of interests involved. The president and the MPs are interested in delaying the reforms.”

35-year-old Dimka has a similar opinion. She knows that in order for a trial to end in Bulgaria, months or years pass. This means a lot money and time, while the decision of the court could still be unsatisfactory.

“This is an extremely slow system. Trials drag on and I don’t really know what the reason is. In my opinion the quality of judicial services in Bulgaria is very low. And there is no justice, as well,” the woman says.

Radio Bulgaria received similar answers in the district court.

“The system is very slow. I can even say it is sluggish,” says 50-year-old Ms. Hristova.

We met Maria, who was in the court as a witness in a never-ending trial. Asked by Radio Bulgaria, if the judicial system has improved over the years, the woman answered:
“I am not really acquainted with the reforms but I think there are no positive changes. There is something wrong in the whole system. I would like everything in this country to happen faster, in order to live our lives when we are young. I am a witness in a minor trial and they have called me here hundreds of times, which is really getting on my nerves,” Maria says.

Novinite

Bulgaria's Special Tribunal to Start Functioning Mid-2011

Bulgarian Parliament voted Thursday that the start date of the new special tribunal should be in six months.
Bulgaria's special anti-mafia tribunal will start operating in the summer of 2011 after the parliament voted that the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code should come into force six months after their adoption.

According to the MPs, the 6-month period is needed to constitute the court and to select the magistrates that will work there.

The Specialized Criminal Court will hear cases of organized crime, the parliament decided at second reading Thursday.

The MPs also agreed that if a person is tried on several charges, one of which is under the jurisdiction of the special tribunal, then all of the cases will be under the same court.

Following the same principle, when two or more cases for different crimes against different people are connected, they should be united, and if one of the cases is under the special tribunal, then the united case will also be under the same court.

When determining the jurisdiction between the Specialized Criminal Court and the Military tribunal, the latter will be leading, the MPs agreed. The Specialized Criminal Court of Appeals will be the upper body, while the last will be the Supreme Court of Cassations.

The summoned by the specialized magistrates will be obliged to appear at the hearing, regardless of their attendance in other courts or authorities of the trial.

According to Maya Manolova, MP from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the reasons for the adoption of the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code were only political.

"
The majority wants to direct certain type of cases against certain people, including political opponents, to the specialized tribunal, which is a much more severe body,"
Manolova said.

[size=55:1l41mmpa]novinite

Bulgaria Violates European Human Rights Convention

Bulgaria has been mentioned as one of the nine members of the Council of Europe, which have shown a "
worrying delay"
in the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Major systemic deficiencies have been observed in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine in implementing judgements of the European Court of Human Rights , the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) has stated in a resolution adopted on Wednesday.

Deaths or ill-treatment caused by law-enforcement officials, unlawful or over-long detention, legal proceedings which take too long unlawful or over-long detention, legal proceedings which take too long and court judgements which are not enforced have been the main violations in the criticized countries, according to PACE.

Other states with outstanding problems include include Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzgovina, Georgia and Serbia.

Novinite

EU Judges: Mistrust Reigns among Bulgarian Judiciary

A delegation of the European Association of Judges spent three days in Bulgaria to conduct a check of the Independence of Bulgarian courts.
In the Bulgarian judicial system, there is an atmosphere of mistrusts, selfish interests and attempts to take over public attention, the three European judges, who visited Bulgaria say.

The judges, cited by the Bulgarian daily "
Trud"
(Labor), arrived in the country for а three-day check aimed at establishing whether there is unauthorized independence threatening pressure and interference in the work of Bulgaria's courts.

The check was requested by the Bulgarian Judges' Union over the endless attacks and accusations against the justice system, coming from Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov. The Bulgarian magistrates are seeking international support to be able to remain independent, they say.

The delegation included Austria's Gerhard Reissner, President of the European Association of Judges (EAJ), the Dutch judge Marten Stenbeck and the Estonian judge Meelis Eerik. In their criticism, the three have not named any particular institutions and courts.

From Wednesday until Friday, they met with a number of high-ranking magistrates, attorneys and journalists. They declined to say more before their official report is published and discussed in May by EAJ.

EAJ will then vote on the needed measures where there are three options: to only publish the report;
extend recommendations to Bulgarian authorities, or alarm the European Commission.

In their latest mission, in a former Soviet Republic, EAJ have notified directly the EC President, Jose Manuel Barroso, about violations and there has been a positive outcome.

"
Everyone I talked to in Bulgaria was sincere in their desire to lead a successful battle against organized crime and enforce the law. But there is a stark discrepancy between goals and the methods to achieve them. You must overcome egoism and the strive to self-promote,"
Reissner said before departing from Bulgaria.

Novinite

German MPs Want 'Pressure' on Bulgarian Judiciary

A delegation from the German Bundestag is in Sofia Monday to inquire about Bulgaria's preparedness to enter the Schengen Area.

Germany, together with France, has been voicing strong opposition to an imminent entry into Schengen of Bulgaria and Romania, pointing to worries about the status of the judiciary and law enforcement in the two countries given persisting problems with corruption and organized crime.

"
The pressure on the Bulgarian judiciary must be increased,"
said conservative MP Hans-Peter Uhl, who is the chair of the delegation.

"
On the one hand you must guarantee the independence of the judges, but on the other, you must ensure their insusceptability to corruption,"
clarified Uhl.

Hans-Peter Uhl is a member of the Christian Social Union and member of the Internal Affairs Committe of the German Bundestag.

Regarding Schengen, the German MP stated: "
Sometimes we think that the state of the judiciary has nothing to do with borther control. In that case however we must also be thinking: If we say nothing now, then after Schengen accession it would be too late."


Uhl thus implicitly confirmed that the Schengen entry of Bulgaria and Romania might be used as a tool to pressure the two countries to institute actual improvements in the field of justice and law enforcement.

tonyb60 wrote:

No:

I found the following on another forum and I am not printing it to bore any fellow members, but purely to endorse the fact that I have not seen or witnessed any improvement to the judicial system
I draw your attention to the last sentence of the text below. The proven criminal who illegally stole our villa Dimitar Angelov Teoharov (ID No 5407254422) and fled the country through the Turkish border on July 27th 2008 has been back to the village Bdinsti in the last month and has also been seen in Dobrich by several people including the police and he has not been arrested or even bought in for questioning, so WHY WHY WHY

Subject: Re: WILL BULGARIA CRACK DOWN ON PROPERTY FRAUD
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the T****** have been a real inspiration to fellow expat's, how they have held themselves together through this is amazing, and just how they would have got on if the Bulgarian judiciary hadn't had the pressure Elles and Miliband had sent their way via PM Borisov i dont know, and i'm sure it helped to have the Foreigners Association presence on the courthouse steps on a daily basis. Full and complete Justice now would be to see the handyman who shafted them, Dimitar Teoharov, get his days in court.

:Thank you:for taking the trouble to read this

Has the judicial system in Bulgaria improved?


NO !

[size=55:3svbu58h]Dnevnik

Access denied

Amendments to the Commercial Register Act, passed by the legal affairs committee of Parliament on April 7, will limit full access to the register's data to paying customers. The proposal, put forth by the Justice Ministry, comes in response to demands put forth in 2010 by Bulgaria's largest employer associations.

The committee's endorsement of the amendments was criticised by transparency advocates, who said that the changes would decrease transparency of corporate affairs, which has been hailed as one of the main achievements of the register after it started operations in 2008.

Although the changes had been proposed by the ministry as far back as August 2010, lawyer Alexander Kashumov from the Access to Information Programme said he was surprised by the timing of the committee's vote. "
Just as we reached a serious level of dialogue and acceptable solution, the desire for dialogue has suddenly vanished,"
he told Dnevnik daily.

Corporate concerns

The main argument put forth by the employer associations against granting everyone full access to the register was the fact a lot of sensitive information was in the public domain.

Currently, anyone with internet access can go to the register’s website at brra.bg, type in the name of any company and get information about its owners, their addresses, legally-protected personal data such as date of birth and samples of executives’ handwritten signatures. This is possible because the register posts PDF files of the handwritten forms filled in by companies’ owners.

Concerns about corporate identity theft remain high after a string of such occurrences in Bulgaria in recent years, with foreign nationals often targeted.

Editing out the sensitive information in the files already in the register was not an option because the Registry Agency lacked the personnel to go through all documents and black out the sensitive data.

Paid access

Should the amendments be voted into law, full access to the Commercial Register would be granted in three ways: online by using an electronic signature or a paid digital certificate issued by the Registry Agency, or in person after filing the appropriate forms with the Registry Agency and presenting identification documents.

The last option would generate unnecessary red tape and further increase queues at the Registry Agency, critics of the Justice Ministry proposal said.

Some data about companies would still remain accessible for free online, including company name, the name of its chief executive, its address, statute and financial results.

Paid access would be required to view all other documents that the companies are required to file with the Registry Agency, including decisions and minutes of shareholder meetings, as well as reports of "
change in status"
, filed in case of shareholder disputes or pending ownership change.

The exact cost of the digital certificate issued by the Registry Agency was not specified, although earlier statements by agency officials claimed it could be as low as 20 leva a year, compared to the cost of an annual electronic signature, which stands at 60 leva a year for an individual and 100 leva a year for a company.

However, it was unclear whether the electronic signature would serve as a free pass into the Commercial Register or just a means of identifying who made the query, with additional payment due for accessing the information. Neither was it clear how much it would cost the agency to acquire the necessary hardware and software to process paid queries.

No free access?

One controversial clause of the amendments presented a loophole that would make the freely-accessible data in register useless, Kashumov said.

The exact clause said that access to the free documents was provided with the exclusion of data protected by the Personal Data Act;
this protection would extend to the names of a company's directors.

"
The citing of the Personal Data Act will create chaos in practice. Furthermore, the previous experience in Bulgaria shows that any time that law is invoked, it leads to complete lack of transparency. An example of that is the Conflict of Interest Act, which contains a similar clause that many institutions used to not publish conflict of interest declarations, citing their employees' refusal to have their personal data disclosed,"
Kashumov said.

Unless the Commercial Register Act stipulated which personal data was mandatory to be made, the Registry Agency and companies would use the widest possible interpretation of the law and refuse to identify even the people managing or representing a company, he said.

Lack of transparency
The critics' pessimistic view of
the amendments seemed to be reinforced by the way Parliament's legal committee voted on the bill – late in the evening, with only six of 26 of the committee's members in attendance, Dnevnik reported.

The committee's chairperson, Iskra Fidossova, counted 10 votes in favour from ruling party GERB, with seven votes against counted from absent MPs from the socialist party and the centre-right Blue Coalition.

a case of shutting the stable door , after the horse has bolted !