site.btaPM Borissov Comments NRA Cyber Attack, New Prosecutor General's Election

106 POLITICS - NRA DATA BREACH - PM BORISSOV - COMMENT

PM Borissov Comments
NRA Cyber Attack,
New Prosecutor General's Election


Pazardzhik, South Bulgaria, August 3 (BTA) - Answering a journalist's question here late on Friday about the July 15 hacking of the databases of the National Revenue Agency (NRA), which compromised the personal data of millions of Bulgarians, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said that someone wants to purposefully topple the government.

Commenting the prosecuting magistracy's actions concerning the case, Borissov said that the prosecuting magistracy is an independent branch of power and he has nothing to do with it.

Approached about the upcoming election of a new prosecutor general, Borissov noted that prosecutors should elect prosecutors and judges should elect judges. "I could have intervened only through the Justice Minister, who could have proposed a candidate to the Supreme Judicial Council," the Prime Minister said. According to him, this option should be dropped from the law, as no political party or government should be allowed to intervene in the independent Judiciary, which is why he did not nominate a candidate.

The current Deputy Prosecutor General, Ivan Geshev, was nominated by the prosecutors' college in the Supreme Judicial Council for the post of prosecutor general. His nomination got overwhelming support from prosecutors from across the country. Objections were raised by the non-parliamentary Right-wing opposition and NGOs working in the area of judicial reform and fighting high-level corruption, who organized protest rallies against Geshev's nomination. Justice Minister Danail Kirilov did not nominate a candidate for new prosecutor general at the SJC's plenum last Monday, thus leaving Geshev as the sole candidate for the position.

The SJC will meet on October 9 to decide which candidates are eligible, and the new prosecutor general will be elected on October 24 to replace Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov, whose term expires next January.

Borissov was in Pazardzhik to meet with local mayors, who were protesting against some of the measures to control the African Swine Fever outbreak in the country. LI/MY

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