NEWS

Clear procedures and rules guarantee transparency in the selection of members of the Supreme Judicial Council and the future Prosecutor-General

Clear procedures and rules provide for transparency in the selection of members of the Supreme Judicial Council as well as of the Prosecutor-General. Equally important, however, are the criteria to ensure that only proven professionals and worthy representatives of the judiciary may be elected to key positions. This was agreed at a meeting today by President Rosen Plevneliev and Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev.

"It is important that an improved dialogue among institutions and their interaction with each other restores confidence among our partners and what is more important, the trust of Bulgarian citizens in the state,” President Plevneliev said during the meeting.

Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev briefed the Head of State on the performance of the prosecution in Bulgaria in recent years. Prosecutor-General Velchev said that there had been considerable success in detecting offences in the areas of organised crime, drug dealing, abuse of European funds and tax fraud. “In Bulgaria there have been 50 000 convictions in a year and just 1200 acquittals, and this is good to know,” the Prosecutor-General said. He said that there was still room for improvement in the area of combating corruption. He hoped the work of prosecutors and the judiciary would be assessed fairly in the preparation of the forthcoming report on Bulgaria through the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism of the European Commission, Prosecutor-General Velchev said.

At the meeting, Boris Velchev expressed the expectation that the selection of the new Prosecutor-General would happen as soon as possible after the election of the future panel of the Supreme Judicial Council to ensure the necessary continuity. The Prosecutor-General said that the effectiveness of the prosecution would be greatly improved after the adoption of a new Penal Code, as the current one dates back to 1968.