site.btaBulgaria Hosts Conference of European Criminal Bar Association for First Time

For the first time, Bulgaria hosted a conference of the European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA) here on Saturday. 

Ivaylo Dermendzhiev, head of the Supreme Bar Council that played a key role in having the forum in Sofia, commented for BTA that in Bulgaria, criminal law is less widely practiced. There is no official statistics, but out of 14,000 lawyers in this country, those practicing criminal law are fewer than 500. In comparison, 500 out of 6,000 lawyers in Rome practice criminal law, and the share is similar in other EU Member States. The work of a criminal lawyer is not so attractive because it is harder than that of trade and civil lawyers. Also, a criminal lawyer works with people's fates, while a civil lawyer deals with their money, Dermendzhiev said.

In smaller settlements, lawyers work in all branches of the law, which leads to problems related to cross-border disputes, for example. He gave as an example the case with the five Bulgarian nationals arrested in London for espionage, who have English lawyers. They share that they have no one to communicate with in Bulgaria, because they do not know good criminal lawyers who also speak foreign languages, Dermendzhiev said.

ECBA Chairman Vincent Asselineau told BTA that Bulgaria is extremely important for the ECBA in that the country is well-situated geopolitically while being poorly represented in Europe in the field of criminal law. In his words, they want to get to know their colleagues here so that Bulgarian criminal lawyers can become visible in the whole of Europe. The ECBA, which is a link between European countries, the European Commission and the European Parliament, wants to create contacts and structures in Bulgaria, Asselineau added.

The ECBA forum in Sofia was also attended by Maya Ivanova, a Bulgarian criminal law specialist who has worked at the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and the State Agency for National Security in the area of money laundering and financial fraud. She commented for BTA on the cases of Russian nationals regulatory sanctioned in Bulgaria. In her words, banks and institutions here treat these sanctions very seriously. They wish to avoid the potential risk and the European Commission's and Bulgarian National Bank's fines for failure to observe the sanction regimes, so the banks refuse any kind of transactions by sanctioned Russian nationals. However, non-sanctioned Russian nationals experience difficulties as well, even if they are against Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime, because they are considered high-risk clients and have to present more documents and undergo more complex procedures to prove the origin of their money, Ivanova noted.

Ondrej Laciak, Criminal Committee Chair at the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), told BTA that the ECBA conferences are very important, because they discuss matters of great importance to the organization, such as sanctions and rights of the person in criminal proceedings. One of the main goals is to protect the fundamental rights of citizens in criminal proceedings, he said. The discussions held by ECBA are taken into view by the European legislator. The Brussels-based ECBA has a permanent place in the Council of Europe, EU institutions, and the European Public Prosecutor's Office, Lacjak underscored.