Bulgarian Specialized Courts to Become Operational in 2012

The launch of Bulgaria's much-discussed special judicial bodies has been postponed for January 2012. Photo by BGNES

The Bulgarian Parliament has passed at first reading amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code postponing the launch of specialized courts for January 01, 2012.

The proposal for the deferral was made by ruling party GERB, according to a report of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA).

On July 01, GERB asked for a delay, citing "the need to ensure the normal functioning of the specialized structures".

The postponement was first requested by Chief Prosecutor Boris Velchev, who demanded more time for the training of the magistrates.

According to Velchev, the magistrates pending appointment in the new judicial bodies are "smart and ambitious but totally unprepared".

The candidates for the specialized courts proved to be too few, with most of them coming from regional courts and prosecutor's offices, where minimum experience requirements are applied and organized crime cases hardly ever appear.

Velchev also advised GERB to reduce the list of offences to be tackled by the new court and prosecutor's office in order to avoid a work overload resulting in even bigger delays of high-profile cases.

The two instances of the specialized court and prosecutor's office will have a total of 134 employees, 53 of them being magistrates.

The special judicial bodies, initially scheduled to start functioning on August 12, 2011, are to tackle organized crime cases such as kidnappings, money-laundering, EU fund fraud, trafficking, etc.

The decision for the establishment of the anti-mafia courts was met with disapproval on the part of civil rights' organizations and the parliamentary opposition.

Apart from that, there were speculations that the new units constitute extraordinary judicial bodies.

According to a statement of the Venice Commission, "the selection of candidates, their nomination and the required qualifications will be decisive for qualifying the court as a specialized or an extraordinary body".

At the same time, the last report of the European Commission defined the creation of the new structures as a manifestation of political will to eliminate crime.

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