Bulgaria Blagoevgrad Court Shaken by Latest Judiciary Scandal

A huge scandal is rocking the Blagoevgrad District Court, over numerous violations of its Chair, revealed through a VSS probe. File Photo

A probe of Bulgaria's Supreme Judicial Council (VSS) of the District Court in the southern city of Blagoevgrad confirms the allegations of numerous violations in the jurisdiction.

The probe was triggered by media reports about scandals involving the Blagoevgrad Court.

In December, Bulgaria's Justice Minister, Margarita Popova, announced that following the ‘Krasio from Pleven’ magistrate scandal, a second “brokerage” scheme has been uncovered in the Blagoevgrad District court. Popova was backed by the leader of the Conservative Order, Law and Justice (RZS) party and Member of the Parliament, Yane Yanev, who claimed that an individual nicknamed "Badzhanaka” is serving as the Blagoevgrad Court's “broker.”

After the scheme was announced, VSS decided to postpone the selection of a new Court Chair. The two main competitors are the current Court Head, Krasimir Arshinkov, and magistrate Dimitar Uzunov.

The VSS January probe avoids any comments on the alleged brokerage scheme, but nevertheless focuses on a number of irregularities, involving mainly Arshinkov, and his wife Mihaela Arshinkova, who is a top lawyer in Blagoevgrad. The investigation has shown that on Arshinkov's recommendations the VSS hired as judges three lawyers, who previously worked in his wife's law offices, one of them straight for the post of the Court's Deputy Chair.

In 2009, Mihaela Arshinkova had been the attorney in 61 cases, of which 35 were tried by her former employees. In addition, most of the cases have been assigned to a certain judge by hand, not randomly as the system requires.

In the mean time, under an article on the site DarikNews.bg, dedicated to the violations in the Blagoevgrad Court, published in February 2009, readers began an improvised online forum containing over 3 000 anonymous comments. In the summer, Arshinkov filed a complaint with the Blagoevgrad police, requesting that they identify the forum's participants, who wrote against him and his wife. The request has been rejected, but the District Prosecutor then initiated pre-trial proceedings against an unknown participant in the forum for life threats against Arshinkov. The next day, the authorities confiscated from the Darik headquarters in Sofia IP addresses of forum users. One of them ended being the IP address of magistrate Petar Uzunov, brother of Arshinkov's main rival for the Court Chair post, Dimitar. It was proven later that he wrote negative comments, but never threats and his identity has been illegally revealed.

The Blagoevgrad prosecution, however, began proceedings against Uzunov for violating the magistrates' ethical code. Uzunov also remains the only publicly identified forum user.

The VSS probe concludes Arshinkov and his wife had made an unacceptable public demonstration of family ties in numerous court cases.

In addition, Arshinkov had committed other violations such as personally dismissing a jury member, instead through a meeting of all magistrates as it is required; hiring a security guard at the Court, who was earlier issued a non-guilty verdict by Arshinkov himself. The Blagoevgrad Court Chair also failed to declare in 2007 his wife's law offices and had been instrumental in appointing his best man as the Chair of the Court in the nearby town of Petrich, all of the above defined by Arshinkov as minor omissions, blown out of proportion in order to discredit his possible second term appointment.

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