site.btaDisclosure of Banking-Secrecy-Covered Data May Be Required to Check Magistrates' Property Declarations

Sofia, May 30 (BTA) - Bulgaria's Parliament Wednesday passed conclusively amendments to the Judicial System Act empowering the Inspectorate with the Supreme Judicial Council to require the disclosure of data covered by banking secrecy when this is necessary to verify the property declaration of magistrates who have not declared in writing their consent to access to such data.

The revisions optimize the framework for check of magistrates' property declarations and fine-tune the provisions on magistrates' secondment and appraisal.

Upon entry into office and annually on of before May 16, judicial officers will be obliged to submit to their employer a declaration on property and financial interests under the Counter-Corruption and Unlawfully Acquired Assets Forfeiture Act.

Within one month after the entry into force of the amendments, judicial officers will be obliged to submit a declaration to the effect that they meet the requirements to occupy the position and a declaration on incompatibility.

According to another revision, the following are ineligible for appointment as a judicial officer:

- any person who would come in a hierarchical relationship of direction and control with a spouse, a de facto cohabitant, a lineal relative up to any degree of consanguinity, a collateral relative up to the fourth degree of consanguinity inclusive, and an affine up to the fourth degree of affinity inclusive;

- any person who is a sole trader, an unlimited partner in a commercial corporation, a managing director, a business attorney, a commercial agent, a managerial agent, a broker, a liquidator or a trustee in bankruptcy, a member of a management or supervisory body of a commercial corporation or cooperative;

- any person who is a municipal councillor, occupies a senior or supervisory position in a political party, works for another employer under an employment relationship (except as a member of the teaching staff at a higher school); is a lawyer, notary, private enforcement agent or practitioner of another liberal profession.