European Commission Report Critical of Bulgarian Justice

Today a European Commission report described Bulgaria’s attempt to reform its judiciary and clean up organised crime and corruption as insufficient and ‘fragile’.

The highly critical report is part of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism process established in 2007 when Bulgaria joined the European Union and in doing so agreed to adopt EU standards.

It can be found at the Commission’s CVM Website: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/secretariat_general/cvm/index_en.htm

The following is a summary of the report provided by the European Commission press office.

 Today’s report concludes that since the Commission’s last report in July 2012 Bulgaria has taken a few steps forward. There have been some improvements in appointment procedures, some useful managerial steps by the Prosecutor General and some progress by the Supreme Judicial Council on the workload issue.

However, overall progress has been not yet sufficient, and fragile. Repeated controversies such as appointments having to be aborted due to integrity issues, the escape from justice of convicted leaders of organised crime and a succession of revelations about political influence on the judicial system have affected public confidence. There remain very few cases where crimes of corruption or organised crime have been brought to conclusion in court.

These are issues at the heart of the modernisation of Bulgarian society: for reform to succeed, it needs a consistent and coherent approach based on a broad consensus in Bulgarian society. The fact that this period included three different governments has not helped to build this consensus, though events have also illustrated a widespread public aspiration for reform.

The report contains a number of specific recommendations in the areas of independence, accountability and integrity of the judiciary; reform of the judicial system; efficiency of the judicial system; corruption; and organised crime.

President Barroso said, “This report shows that the Bulgarian authorities need to galvanise the forces in favour of reform and provide leadership. Core principles like the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary must be at the heart of a long-term strategy for reform. A political commitment to this approach, as well as concrete and practical measures in the short term, is the best way to bring the process forward and accelerate progress towards the CVM benchmarks”.’

 

For more background see http://www.euractiv.com/justice/exclusive-commission-bulgaria-br-news-532908

Also see coverage of the report by The Sofia Echo, a Bulgarian English language online news site:

http://sofiaglobe.com/2014/01/22/war-of-words-over-european-commission-report-on-bulgaria/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=war-of-words-over-european-commission-report-on-bulgaria&utm_source=The+Sofia+Globe+Daily+Bulletin&utm_campaign=d368c0b275-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8c38ec575a-d368c0b275-13936873