site.btaCaretaker Justice Minister Yankulov Urges Immediate Removal of Acting Prosecutor General, Calls for Swift Judicial Reform

The judicial system should not spend more months with an [acting] Prosecutor General at the head of the prosecution service who is there contrary to the law and morality, said caretaker Justice Minister Andrey Yankulov in a Facebook post on Monday.

Yesterday’s [Sunday’s] elections have both their clear winner - Progressive Bulgaria, and their major losers - the long-standing political producers of the corrupt status quo in the judiciary, he commented.

According to Yankulov, one of the critically important issues for Bulgaria’s future from here on is how this strong public support for change in the judiciary will be transformed into political action.

The truly disastrous result for the parties that did everything possible to keep the judicial system away from change shows that citizens see reform as inevitable, he added.

“I would like to believe that restoring legality in the running of the prosecution service will be the first small step of change,” Yankulov said.

In his view, this step should not have to wait for the election of a new composition of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC). While it is important for this election to happen quickly, it is even more important that it be done properly, which rules out speed at any cost, because there must be guarantees that honest professionals will be selected who will follow the public interest for an independent, rather than party-dominated, judicial system.

According to him, the SJC, and in particular its Prosecutors’ College, were given enough opportunities over the past two months to understand what is happening and that they are “trying to preserve what cannot be preserved”.  “They did not understand it and did not take the opportunity to leave the situation with some professional dignity. If they continue to be unable to do so, the new parliament may resolve the issue for them through ordinary legislative action in its very first days,” Yankulov said.  

At the beginning of April, the Ministry of Justice published a working analysis of the competency model for senior administrative leaders in the judiciary, including the Prosecutor General, the presidents of the supreme courts, the director of the National Investigation Service, as well as administrative heads of prosecution offices at various levels.