site.btaSupreme Judicial Council Representative Member Remains Unchanged

Supreme Judicial Council Representative Member Remains Unchanged

Sofia, October 20 (BTA) - With a vote of 15 to 8, the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) voted to keep its representative member Dimiter Ouzounov. Reasoning the motion for the replacement, Sofia City Court President and SJC member Kalin Kalpakchiev said that Ouzounov failed to perform well his duties and undermined the prestige of the SJC.

The motion for Ouzounov's replacement was prompted by a scandal flaring up after it transpired that he single-handedly decided which Council members would be meeting with a delegation of European prosecutors visiting Sofia as part of a mission to prepare a report on the operation of the Bulgarian prosecuting magistracy.

After the vote, Ouzounov turned to Supreme Court of Cassation President Lozan Panov - one of the people who moved for his replacement - saying that he had "stabbed him painfully in the back".

Panov commented that the SJC representative member is not a boss and that the SJC is a collective body of authority. "Deciding what members would be meeting with the EU prosecutors was done single-handedly and that violated the rules," he added.

Ouzounov repeated his take of the situation: the letter from the EU prosecutorial mission asking for the meeting with SJC members, reached him at the end of a work day and he had no time to act differently.

Supreme Administrative Court President Georgi Kolev said there was nothing dramatic about the way Ouzounov handled the situation.

Yassen Todorov, the chair of the SJC ethics commission, said that no detriment for the SJC followed from the meeting with the EU prosecutors. "There was no conspiracy," he added.

Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov said that any prosecutor or investigator has a chance to meet with the EU prosecutors.

SJC member Magdalena Lazarova said that nobody told her that the EU prosecutors were asking to meet with SJC members.

She also said that the SJC is badly divided.