site.btaProsecutor General, Ranking GERB Deputy Dismiss Idea for Removing Prosecution Service from Judiciary

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Prosecutor General, Ranking GERB Deputy Dismiss
Idea for Removing Prosecution
Service from Judiciary


Sofia, June 7 (BTA) - Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov and Danail Kirilov MP (GERB), who heads the parliamentary legal committee, dismissed Wednesday an idea for removing the prosecution service from the judiciary and making it equidistant from the three branches of government. The idea came from the reform-minded President of the Supreme Court of Cassation, Lozan Panov, as he met with the President Rumen Radev Tuesday to discuss the judicial reform.

Earlier this week the President started a series of meetings with ranking representatives of the judicial system to discuss aspects of the ongoing reform of the judiciary. He conferred with Supreme Administratvie Court President Georgi Kolev on May 5 and with Lozan Panov the next day.

Emerging from his meeting with the President on Wednesday, the Prosecutor General said that making the prosecution service an independent institution will hardly put it under tighter control.

MP Danail Kirilov commented that a political agenda transpires between the lines of Panov's proposal. He told reporters in Parliament that Panov's proposal overstepped his powers as magistrate, be it at his high rank. "It was out of place and brings back an old debate - of 20 years ago, when the bodies of the judiciary were established and their independence and inclusion or exclusion from the judiciary was decided," said Kirilov.

He added that all of Bulgaria's partners consider this matter dealt with.

"I suspect that there is a political task to be carried out, or a task for a political party," he said refusing the specify who put this task.

He also said that it is important, as the judiciary is going through changes, to work for improving public confidence in it. "When people always look out for something to criticize, to change long established structural decisions and rules, one gets the suspicion that the aim is to undermine confidence in the judicial system," Kirilov said.

FALTY TYRE BOLTS

The Prosecutor General was also asked to comment reports that the National Bodyguard Service (NBS) car driving Lozan Panov was found to have two tyre bolts missing and another two loose. This was established by Panov and his NBS driver on Wednesday when they heard an odd noise as the car was moving.

Tsatsarov said that earlier on Wednesday military prosecutors opened a probe into the matter. The NBS director, as well as Panov's driver and NBS officers will be questioned.

The Prosecutor General said that nobody from the NBS alerted prosecutors or the President's Office about the incident, and that he heard about it from Panov's remarks on Wednesday.

The NBS reports to the President. LN/
/СН/