site.btaPresident Radev Confers with Bulgarian Judges Association Representatives

The fight for the rule of law is a fight for the way Bulgaria should develop, President Rumen Radev said at a meeting with representatives of the Bulgarian Judges Association (BJA), Radev's Press Secretariat said here on Thursday. It is the duty of every responsible institution, the professional legal community and the public, Radev said.

BJA raised a number of issues related to the reform of the justice system, the ways in which the professional growth of magistrates is determined and the effective interaction between institutions. The President stressed the need to return public attention to the importance of the reform of the Bulgarian justice system and regretted that in the 49th National Assembly the issue was used as a cover for pushing through various controversial amendments to the Constitution.

The effectiveness of the investigations and probes in relation to Martin (The Notary) Bozhanov's influence network is an indicator of the state of the justice system, the participants in the meeting agreed. President Radev recalled that he had repeatedly raised the issue of finding not only the perpetrators of Bozhanov's murder, but also those who ordered it, as well as revealing the criminal dependencies between politics and justice, the statement said. Radev also recalled his words that the Bulgarian public will either break the network in which the mafia has entangled it, or this network will suffocate the State.  

Martin Bozhanov was shot dead in a gated complex in a Sofia suburb on the evening of January 31. According to media reports, he was a large-scale fixer of people's problems with the Judiciary. He has been implicated in building a network of connections with prosecutors and judges whom he allegedly bribed, threatened, blackmailed or otherwise pressured to treat his "clients" favourably.