site.btaPolicy of Pardoning Convicts over Past Two Terms Has Become Increasingly Opaque

In the last few years, official data on pardoned persons has become increasingly scarce and uninformative, and analyses are lacking, said in an interview with BTA Assoc. Prof. Dr. Iva Pushkarova from the Department of Criminal Justice at the Faculty of Law of Sofia University.

She pointed out that the reports of the Commission on Pardons are short and mainly reproduce the old analytical reports.

“Personally, I do not understand the standards of decision-making, as pardon requires an individual approach, and in the reports everything is the same. The descriptions of clemency cases are schematic and vague, and in some of them the exceptionalism is neither obvious nor justified," Pushkarova said.

“Before 2016, people showed empathy and satisfaction when convicts were pardoned; the criticism tended to be that the number was small. I remember cases of strong public pressure to pardon people who were denied it despite that,” she said.

According to Pushkarova, the policy in this direction is not transparent and the public is not regularly and honestly informed about it, so it is normal to expect an increase in public suspicion and feelings of threat, and these in turn may give rise to a claim that the right, which is not exercised understandably, should not be exercised at all.