Bulgarian Supreme Judicial Council Reinstates Senior Judge

In January, Veselin Pengezov was removed from the post of head of the Sofia Appellate Court for ruining the image of the judiciary. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's Supreme Administrative Court (VAS) has revoked the decision of the Supreme Judicial Council (VSS) to remove Veselin Pengezov from the position of chair of the Sofia Appellate Court.

Pengezov was dismissed on January 18 over revelations made in the summer of 2010 which tangled his family in a property scandal related to a transfer of ownership of beach-front property in Bulgarian Black Sea resort Primorsko to his daughter, Ana Pengezova, who is also a magistrate.

The VAS rule can be appealed. It was made on the grounds VSS failed to show clear evidence of violations and to explain how exactly Pengezov had breached the magistrates' Ethics Code and the Judicial Power Act. VAS judges remind that the main rule in disciplinary sanctions is to base them on personal actions and responsibility, when in Pengezov's case the alleged violations only involve his daughter.

The defense council reminded that Ana Pengezova is actually the only one of the five relatives of senior magistrates and 250 other individuals obtaining construction permits, who did not build anything on the beach-front property she got. In July 2010, she formally waived her construction rights as the scandal erupted and drew immense public criticism against the judiciary.

Nevertheless, Pengezov became the first magistrate to be punished over the Primorsko property scandal. The relatives and family members of the said five magistrates received construction rights on municipal lands claiming the status of people on social benefits who were in need of housing.

Pengezov took over the Sofia Appellate Court in June 2009 in midst of opposition on part of other judges in the court. Before that he was the head of the Military Prosecutor's Office, and is known to have been in conflict with former Chief Prosecutor Nikola Filchev (who was in charge in 1999-2006).

One of the detainees in the special police operation "Octopus" in February 2010, Nikolay Velkov' commented that Pengezov "is a big player". After a probe, in May 2010, VSS cleared Pengezov of suspicions of ties with the detainees in Operation Octopus, which include the former employee of the State Agency for National Security, DANS, Aleksei Petrov.

The other four magistrates, whose relatives received construction rights in Primorsko, are judges Panayot Genkov, Nikolay Urumov and Andrey Ikonomov from the Supreme Administrative Court, and magistrate Yordan Ivanov.

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