THE OMBUDSMAN OF BULGARIA ABOUT THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM

The Ombudsman of Bulgaria, Konstantin Penchev, in the BNT morning programme ‘The Day Begins’ explained that he received many complaints against the judicial system.  A large number of those complaints were that court cases were delayed and prolonged for years, and this was a main scourge for the people. In his opinion, phrases like ‘Action plan’ and ‘Crisis management units’ won’t work in respect of the EC report on Bulgaria’s progress (report on progress in Bulgaria under the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism issued by the EC on 22^nd January 2014).

Konstantin Penchev highlighted that the situation was clear to everyone except to those who could do something to change it. He gave an example with the protests in the streets and that all protesters expressed dissatisfaction with the Bulgarian judicial system. Political parties, both inside and outside Parliament, too state that the judicial system is not functioning, commented the Ombudsman. He explained that instead of action plans and crisis management measures the politicians should, especially when civil society approves, initiate the serious reform that hadn’t been undertaken in the past 25 years. He added that the judicial system was drenched with appointments made in a non-transparent way, with unknown influences and dependencies.

In the same interview the Ombudsman encouraged society to speak out against the use of covert listening and recording devices. He suggested media and society make it known that such devices and illegal recordings were unacceptable because they might not be authentic and could be fabricated or manipulated. And for those reasons they were not acceptable as evidence in court.

According to him, not paying attention and ignoring these scandalous recordings and “news” would be the best way to stop them being interesting and he added that members of the public should object to the use of listening devices and the ways they were used; usually used to discredit politicians.