site.btaJustice Minister Proposes Reorganization of Specialized Jurisdictions, Abolition of "Citizenship by Investment"

Sofia, July 30 (BTA) - Bulgarian caretaker Justice Minister
Yanaki Stoilov on Thursday submitted to Parliament an analysis
of the specialized courts and prosecution offices and an
analysis on optimizing the country's judicial map, he told
reporters earlier in the day.

Answering questions raised by the heads of the specialized
jurisdictions, the first analysis proposes, as an optimal
solution, their reorganization from a stand-alone first-instance
 Specialized Criminal Court and Appellate Specialized Court into
 specialized divisions of the Sofia, Plovdiv, Veliko Tarnovo,
Varna and Bourgas district courts. The idea is to discontinue
the operation of these structures while keeping the positive
aspects of administration of specialized justice and the
experience amassed.

The cases pending before the specialized courts and prosecution
offices are to be completed by their panels of judges and
assessors during a longer transition period. The cases that have
 not yet reached the trial phase are to be transferred to the
five specialized divisions set up at the district courts.

It is also proposed to reduce the range of criminal offences
that are handled by the specialized jurisdictions or to narrow
their specialization.

At present, the Specialized Criminal Court tries cases
concerning organized crime, official embezzlement, blackmail,
cross-border smuggling, documentary and financial offences,
trafficking in cultural goods, trafficking in human beings,
arson and offences against transport and communications, against
 public health and the environment, including production and
distribution of explosives and narcotics.

Deputy Justice Minister Maria Pavlova commented that most cases
concerned an organized crime group end in acquittals or the
defendants are convicted of secondary offences which lie within
the jurisdiction of the regional or district court.

Concerning the Protection Bureau under the Prosecutor General,
Stoilov believes that it should do what it was originally
intended to do: protect above all witnesses but also, if
necessary, magistrates.

The Bureau gained notoriety when its members raided the
President's Administration in July 2020, searched the premises
and arrested two of the President's aides.

The Justice Minister is also tabling draft legislative
amendments intended to abolish the so-called "citizenship by
investment". "I have asked the State Agency for National
Security to check the citizenships acquired on this ground in
recent years," Stoilov said.

Bulgaria has incurred criticism from European institutions for
delivering "golden passports" to wealthy non-EU foreigners in
return for "investment" which in most cases does not
materialize.

Another bill that is going before the legislature seeks to keep
in business a state-owned enterprise that takes care of
detention facilities so as to provide employment to inmates and
earn money for the facilities' maintenance.

The analysis on optimizing the judicial map includes
consolidated results of discussions, held countrywide, regarding
 the closure of courts.

A radical reform of the judicial map, proposed by the Supreme
Judicial Council and envisaging the closure of 55 of the
country's 113 regional courts, has triggered an avalanche of
objections from magistrates, lawyers and local authorities from
across Bulgaria. LN/LG