Bulgaria’s Chief Prosecutor: If the budget of the judiciary is reduced, it will be a feast for the mafia and oligarchy

The budget has not been cut, it is a draft proposal to amend the State Budget Act. It is not about the budget of the Prosecutor's Office, it is about the budget of the judiciary, which includes the budget of the Supreme Judicial Council; the Prosecutor's Office is a second level spending unit. The Prosecutor's Office will have no money for expert assessments, for court cases, for translations. This will be a holiday for the mafia and the oligarchy," Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev said on February 17.

He expressed concern about the rule of law, given yesterday's EU decision that certain countries can have their financial allocations stopped or reduced.

"This confirms that the concerns we expressed to representatives of the European Parliament about serious human rights problems are justified. There are more and more cases of violations and circumvention of the law by the Ministry of the Interior, there is police arbitrariness. These problems are rapidly returning us to levels of crime before Bulgaria's accession to the European Union," Geshev added.

In his words, this is another political attack, which Geshev described as "ridiculous".

"It is fake news that there is a problem with the Recovery Plan related to the Prosecutor's Office and the Prosecutor General, the problem will be about those things that contradict the Constitution and European values," Ivan Geshev added.

Earlier this morning, Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev sent a letter to the Speaker of the 47th National Assembly Nikola Minchev and to the Chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee Lyubomir Karimanski with a negative opinion on a proposal made to amend the draft state budget of the Republic of Bulgaria for 2022, after its adoption at the first reading by Parliament.

The letter states that the reduction of the budget allocations for the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Bulgaria will violate the constitutionally guaranteed financial independence of the judiciary, which will inevitably affect the principle of separation of powers and the rule of law.

"The envisaged reduction of the budget would constitute an unacceptable interference by the legislature in the work of the Prosecutor's Office through lack of funds for its functioning. It poses a serious threat to the rule of law in view of the inevitable attempt to control the Prosecutor's Office by making its funding as a condition for its reform and restructuring," the opinion sent by Ivan Geshev further reads.

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