Bulgarian Judicial Council Member Seeks All-Out Probe into Appointments of Colleagues

Kamen Sitnilski, VSS member and former Deputy Chief Prosecutor, photo by BGNES

Kamen Sitnilski, member of Bulgaria's Supreme Judicial Council (VSS), has proposed a probe of the election procedures for VSS members from all quotas – that of prosecutors, investigating magistrates, judges, and Members of Parliament.

Sitnilski, former Deputy Chief Prosecutor, faces disciplinary proceedings over suspicions of breach of ethical rules in the election of VSS members from the prosecutors'quota.

The proceedings were initiated on the proposal of the VSS Ethics Committee on the basis of leaked wiretaps of conversations between Sitnilski, Rumen Boev, VSS member, and other magistrates, during which they agreed how they would vote at the delegate assembly convened in the autumn of 2012 to elect VSS members from the prosecutors' quota.

The transcripts of the controversial recordings were published in end-June.

In an interview for Monday's morning broadcast of Nova TV, Sitnilski claimed that the problem did not only concern VSS and had grown to an institutional level.

"If the election of magistrates is discredited, there can be no authoritative VSS panel from now on," he commented.

Sitnilski reminded that the issue of the legality of the election of VSS members had already been brought up by judges.

He reiterated that he did not intend to resign, adding that he would defend himself in any way possible in the course of proceedings.

"Prosecutors are proud people. They do not tolerate intervention in their affairs and their inner conviction," he stated, as cited by mediapool.bg.

Sitnilski claimed that the leaked wiretaps uncovering bargaining about the vote by the delegate assembly of prosecutors for VSS members were not only a personal attack against him but also a sort of "warning" to the judiciary as a whole.

"Hitting a magistrate with 40 years of experience, trying to humiliate him, means that you have already won the influence of this part of the judiciary to a large extent. Pointing a finger and saying "Did you see what happened to your leader?"- this can only be done by a man who does not love legality," Sitnilski added.

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