site.btaIndependent Analysis of Prosecution Service Recommends Stronger Accountability of Prosecutor General to Parliament

Independent Analysis of Prosecution Service Recommends Stronger Accountability of Prosecutor General
to Parliament

Sofia, December 20 (BTA) - The Justice Ministry Tuesday received from the European Commission an independent technical analysis of the structural and functional model of Bulgaria's prosecution service, its press office said.

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 completion 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. However, Parliament cannot control specific cases.

The random case assignment rule should be changed to ensure that work on the cases is supervised by experienced and competent people and that the workload is distributed adequately. The report also mentions the salaries of prosecutors working on cases of corruption or organized crime.

The Inspectorate should be reformed by making it fully independent of the SJC.

The EU prosecutors argue that indictments should be simplified to set forth the circumstances of a crime as briefly as possible.

They also support the drawing up of a judicial map, which will ensure faster, better quality administration of justice.

Five independent international experts - prosecutors from Britain, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands - have worked on the report since June. They made seven lengthy visits to this country and interviewed more than 200 prosecutors, investigators, police staff, judges, lawyers, investigative journalists, experts and NGO representatives. The experts read several thousand pages of documents.

The Justice Ministry will carefully analyse the recommendations and the report. The summary and the recommendations will be published in English and in Bulgarian on the Ministry's website.

Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov said he was satisfied with "some of the things written" in the EU prosecutors' report on the state of the prosecution service.

Tsatsarov commented on Tuesday that part of the report was not what he expected. He added that it was as unbiased as possible in many aspects. The experts offered a package of recommendations to all branches of power, including the National Assembly. Regarding the organization of the prosecuting magistracy, Tsatsarov said some recommendations were a large step back. He also noted that some recommendations were about strengthening the powers of administrative leaders, including the Prosecutor General.