site.btaJustice Minister: "EU Report Analyzing Bulgaria's Prosecution Service Wants to See Improved Criminal Procedure"

Justice Minister: "EU Report Analyzing Bulgaria's Prosecution Service Wants to See Improved Criminal Procedure"

Sofia, December 21 (BTA) - "I regard the monitoring prosecutors' report as a desire to see an improvement of criminal procedure, an enhanced accountability of individual prosecutors, faster sentences and better investigation," Bulgarian Justice Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva told journalists at the Council of Ministers on Wednesday.

The Justice Ministry Tuesday received from the European Commission an independent technical analysis of the structural and functional model of Bulgaria's prosecution service and its independence.

The English version of the Executive Summary of the report is available on the Ministry's website, at http://www.mjs.bg/Files/
Executive%20Summary%20Final%20Report%20BG%2015122016.pdf.

The analysis makes recommendations about the work of the prosecution service as well as of the court, the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), the Inspectorate and the Justice Ministry.

The EU prosecutors who drafted the report found that unacceptable delays in the disposal of cases were not just due to flaws in the performance of the prosecution service but also of the other participants in criminal proceedings, including the courts. The analysis recommends that the Prosecutor General's accountability to Parliament should develop further through regular meetings of a parliamentary committee with the participation of the leadership of the prosecution service. The Inspectorate should be reformed by making it fully independent of the SJC.

"The report of five prosecutors from four Member States is the product of hard work," Zaharieva said. During seven missions between June and December 2016, the team conducted independent interviews with more than 200 prosecutors, investigating magistrates, police officers, judges, lawyers, investigative journalists, experts and relevant NGO representatives.

"I regard their recommendations as a desire to see an improvement of overall penal policy: the recommendations are addressed to the court, to the Ministry of Justice, to the investigating authorities, to the prosecution service, and even to the National Assembly. We are making an analysis which will be sent to you, and I think that a large part of these recommendations will be fulfilled," the Justice Minister said.

There are recommendations to enhance the role of administrative heads, including the Prosecutor General, and a proposal for a clear procedure for investigation into allegations of serious criminal wrongdoing by a Prosecutor General.

"There are thing which I don't think will help, like the suggestion that career development should be proposed by the administrative head," Zaharieva said.

Former justice minister Hristo Ivanov commented in a Facebook profile: "When you receive such a diagnosis midway in your term as Prosecutor General, you have only one way out: an immediate resignation. The European prosecutors found a total lack of combating high-level corruption and flagrant unaccountability of the Prosecutor General and his subordinates to the public. Essentially, the report is a catalogue of measures for the introduction of accountability and external control, whose sum total constitutes a programme for re-instituting the prosecuting magistracy on the basis of a completely new model of functioning and relations with the public and the rest of the institutions."