site.btaJustice Minister: "Judiciary Scandals Unlikely to Shake Ruling Coalition"

Justice Minister:"Judiciary Scandals Unlikely to Shake Ruling Coalition"

Sofia, December 2 (BTA) - "I don't see any indications of the coalition being shaken," Bulgarian Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov told journalists here on Wednesday after the Cabinet meeting. He was approached for comment on possible problems between the Reformist Bloc and GERB over the ongoing scandals in the judiciary. Judicial reform came to the media limelight after recorded conversations between former Sofia City Court president Vladimira Yaneva and judge Roumyana Chenalova, leaked in installments in recent weeks, suggest that various high-ranking members of the executive and the judiciary, including Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov, have allegedly tried to influence the course of a probe against Yaneva over unlawful surveillance warrants signed by her.

Ivanov pointed out that a letter from European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans, responsible for Better Regulation, Interinstitutional Relations, the Rule of Law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which arrived on Tuesday, assured the addressees: Deputy Prime Minister Meglena Kuneva and to the Justice Minister that the allegations in certain media that the Commission demands anybody resignation are untrue. According to media reports, the European Commission demanded the resignation of Prosecutor General Tsatsarov so that an independent investigation into the alleged trading in influence could be carried out. The Commission denied this allegation shortly after that.

The letter said, however, that part of the criteria that the European Commission applies under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) are whether Bulgaria checks such allegations of high-level corruption. "This is a normal part of the Commission's work within the CVM framework," the Justice Minister commented.

On Wednesday morning, Ivanov conferred with a visiting expert mission of the Commission, and this subject took up 70 per cent of the time of the discussion. "The hysteria over some alleged misleading, falsification and coup is an attempt to sidestep the subject," the Justice Minister said.

In an unsigned analysis, Tuesday's "Troud" accused Ivanov and Democrats for Strong Bulgaria leader Radan Kanev of "organizing and carrying out a conspiracy against the Prosecutor General and the incumbent Supreme Judicial Council". The daily also said that "in an unprecedented way, grossly trampling on all diplomatic principles, Ivanov took the liberty of dragging the EC into a scandal with unlawful recordings and, on the other, the Justice Minister himself admitted that he had been familiarized with the dispatch of the media that is close to him, which is a telling example of certain members of the executive placing the media in Bulgaria under their dependence." Tsatsarov, too, went on record saying that he regards the leaked recordings scandal as a plot against himself and the judicial system, hatched by a political party leader [Kanev] while the debate on the constitutional amendments is in progress.

"I am glad that despite all trials and tribulations, we have arrived at a situation in which the Supreme Judicial Council and the prosecution service are finally checking the facts that are alleged," he added.