The meeting of the Legal Commission in the National Assembly, during which the closing of the Specialized court and the Specialized Prosecutor’s office had to be voted on at first reading, failed due to the absence of MPs from GERB, MRF and some from BSP. The Chairman of the commission Andrey Nikolov did not start the meeting after he found that only the MPs of „Democratic Bulgaria“ /DB/, “ There Is Such A People “ /TISP/ and „Stand up.BG! We are coming!“, so the required quorum could not be gathered.
Similarly, yesterday GERB and MRF in the absence of BSP members created chaos over the adoption of the amendments to the National Security Service bill.
The Geshev coalition is failing the reform with procedural tricks. The situation from the last National Assembly – GERB, MRF and BSP to defend the status quo – is repeated. The BSP verbally announced the closure of the specialized courts and prosecutor’s offices, but when it comes to cases, this is not obvious.“, commented Deputy Chairman of the DB group and member of the legal commission Nadezhda Yordanova.
At today’s meeting Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev was also present, but he ran away when MP Ivaylo Mirchev tried to ask him how the investigation of Vasil Bozhkov‘s accusations of bribes to Boyko Borissov and Vladislav Goranov through the PR Sevdelina Arnaudova was going, the press centre of DB reported.
„When will you ask Vasil Bozhkov about his allegations of bribes of BGN 70 million and when will you ask Borisov?“, Mirchev asked, but received no answer.
The draft amendments to the Judiciary Act, besides the closure of the specialised courts and prosecutor’s offices, also include issues such as the two-stage voting in the Supreme Judicial Council for the career development of judges, including in the election of the heads of the Supreme Court of Cassation /SCC/ and the Supreme Administrative Court /SAC/. It also considers restricting the functions of the Prosecutor’s Office outside of criminal proceedings.
It is envisaged that the candidates for the presidency of the SCC and the SAC should be active judges as members of the plenums of the respective courts for at least 5 years before the election procedure.
