site.btaClosure of Specialized Jurisdictions Approved on First Reading by Amendments to Judicial System Act

Bulgaria's Parliament on Wednesday voted, 134-73, to pass on first reading Government-proposed revisions to the Judicial System Act under which the specialized jurisdictions in Bulgaria are to be closed down.

The first-instance Specialized Criminal Court was set up in 2011 to try organized crime offences, and its jurisdiction was later on expanded to cover corruption offences as well. The Specialized Court's decisions are subject to intermediate appellate review before the Appellate Specialized Criminal Court. This structure is paralleled by a Specialized Prosecution Office and an Appellate Specialized Prosecution Office.

Under amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code included in the Transitional and Final Provisions to the bill, cases for the offences falling under the jurisdiction of the Specialized Criminal Court will now be tried by the competent district and regional courts. In respect of both concluded and unconcluded cases, case files and archives, the Sofia City Court (SCC) and the Sofia Appellate Court (SAC) will be the successors in title to the Specialized Criminal Court and the Appellate Specialized Criminal Court, respectively. Pending court proceedings will be concluded by the same panels and, to this end, the judges who are reassigned to the SCC or the SAC will be posted to the relevant court until the proceedings are completed.

The vote followed an over three hours' long debate, mainly between the opposition GERB-UDF Parliamentary Group, which opposes the move, and the ruling majority, which backs the proposed changes. Continue the Change, There Is Such a People and BSP for Bulgaria argued that specialized justice has not achieved the objective for which it was set up. GERB-UDF insisted that the changes will put at risk the pending criminal cases.

Addressing the legislature after the end of the debate, Justice Minister Nadezhda Yordanova explained that the SCC and the SAC will take over both the assets and liabilities of the closed-down specialized courts whose building will be preserved and the archives will stay there. "The way they are drafted, the provisions enable the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) to reassign the magistrates concerned quite seamlessly," she argued. The SJC will be required to reckon with the caseload of the relevant divisions, which guarantees that the judges will be reassigned to courts which have more work on their hands.

"If some provisions are unclear, violate the Constitution or are at variance with the Venice Commission recommendations, we will hold debates and revise them before the bill comes up for a second reading," Yordanova assured the MPs.

The Justice Minister described the draft legislation as an important first step in the judicial reform. Responding to criticism from the opposition that this bill is not a judicial reform, she said that the bill does not exhaust the powerholders' vision of a judicial reform. Yordanova's Ministry is drafting specific bills that will ensure faster administration of justice, which implies faster investigation, too.

Critics of the specialized courts and prosecution offices argue that powerholders use them as "bludgeons" to eliminate their political and business opponents. Proponents insist that the specialized jurisdictions were set up acting on recommendations from the European Commission and the Council of Europe and that their closure is likely to wreck the Bulgarian judicial system, throwing the cases of serious organized crime figures and oligarchs back to square one, releasing them from custody, and giving them back their seized assets totalling 3.5 billion leva.