THE CHAIRPERSON OF BULGARIA’S SUPREME CASSATION COURT CALLS FOR THE RESIGNATION OF THE SPOKESPERSON OF THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COUNCIL

On 13th of October, the Chairperson ofBulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation, Lozan Panov, called for the resignation of the Spokesperson of the Supreme Judicial Council, Dimitar Uzunov. The reason was that Uzunov single-handedly designated the members of the Supreme Judicial Council who would meet with the European experts inspecting the work of the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office.

Panov linked this with the lack of reaction from the public prosecutor’s office on the “Yaneva Gate” case ( the leaked conversations between Vladimira Yaneva, former Chair of Sofia City Court, and judge Roumyana Chenalova) and the latest statements by the former banker and majority shareholder of Commercial Corporate Bank Tsvetan Vassilev, as well as uncertainty on the investigation of the collapse of Corporate Commercial Bank.

Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor, Sotir Tsatsarov reproached Panov as being politically biased and said that the Head of the Supreme Cassation Court could not hold him to account as regards specific cases. Later, the chief prosecutor said that an indictment on the siphoning off of Corporate Commercial Bank would be submitted to court by February-March 2017.

After the meeting, Uzunov said he would not resign. “I stand behind my actions,“ he said and added he literarily had one hour on Friday to select the participants for the meetings with the European experts. “This happened on Friday, 7th of October, on the celebrations of the 25th anniversary from the establishment of the Supreme Judicial Council”, Uzunov said.