site.btaYonko Grozev: Accountability of Prosecutors for Their Actions Is Central Issue in Judicial Reform

Yonko Grozev: Accountability of Prosecutors for Their Actions Is Central Issue in Judicial Reform


Sofia, February 5 (BTA) - Yonko Grozev, the newly elected judge
for Bulgaria to the European Court of Human Rights, believes
that the accountability of the prosecution office should be a
central issue in the judicial reform. He also said in a BTA
interview Thursday that there are still problems with the
enforcement of the decisions of the ECHR.

Late last month the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly
(PACE) elected Grozev as judge to the European Court of Human
Rights in respect of Bulgaria. Grozev has drafted a large number
of applications to the Strasbourg Court, including cases on the
right to life, prohibition of torture, freedom of speech,
religion and association, the rights of persons with
disabilities, the right to a fair trial, the rights of juvenile
offenders, prison conditions, extradition and deportation, and
election rights.

There is some progress in implementing the Strasbourg Court
decisions, says Grozev. "As a whole, the process remains and
lots of things also remain to be done. One of the key problems
is that the enforcement of the Strasbourg Court decisions is
part of the overall judicial reform: the ability of the judicial
system to enforce international standards competently and
impartially."

Grozev expects Bulgaria to comply, be it in the last possible
moment, with a recent pilot decision by the ECHR giving this
country 18 months to create effective preventive and
compensatory remedies for prisoners who wish to challenge their
detention conditions. "It seems to me that there is readiness
and will on the part of the Justice Ministry to address this
issue seriously," he says adding that the sustained solution
will be the product of a long process as the possible solutions
will also involve legislative changes and require sizeable
financial resources.

Grozev also says that the best work practice shows that it is
not the severity of punishment that has the strongest
crime-prevention power but the unavoidability of the punishment.

Commenting a case in which former Defence Minister Nikolai
Tsonev is suing Bulgaria at the ECHR over his humiliating arrest
in a bribery case (in which he was recently acquitted), Grozev
says that cases such as Tsonev's arrest bring up the issue of
the accountability of prosecutors. "Such cases send a very clear
message: it was the actions of one specific prosecutor who
obviously acted in a manner that went in conflict with
professional ethics and powers, and this prosecutor will never
be punished for this actions. This lack of any mechanism for
accountability of the prosecution, to me, is the key problem in
the judicial reform. Unfortunately, this issue is not even being
raised. There is too much fear of this institution, which
prevents the true issue - the accountability of the prosecution
office for its actions - from being brought up as an issue in
the judicial reform," says Grozev. "Fear is obviously the reason
we have to change in this direction and it does not speak well
of the Bulgarian society. There is a state institution which
cannot be placed under public control and the explanation for
this is fear. The situation does not look good from the
outside."