By transitional and final provisions of a bill revising the Criminal Procedure Code, the National Assembly on Friday conclusively amended and supplemented the Judicial System Act.
The revision reduced the majority at the 25-member Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) required for the appointment and dismissal of a prosecutor general from 17 to 13 votes, while keeping the 17-votes majority for a SJC elective member, a president of the Supreme Court of Cassation, or a president of the Supreme Administrative Court. This final version, moved by Raya Nazaryan MP of GERB-UDF, was carried by 172 votes in favour and 37 against. It modified a motion approved by the Legal Affairs Committee, which proposed a 13-vote majority for hiring and firing the chief prosecutor as well as the two supreme courts' heads.
Where the prosecutor general has been charged with a publicly prosecutable offence, the prosecutor investigating offences allegedly committed by the prosecutor general will approach the SJC Plenum with a reasoned motion for the prosecutor general's suspension from office until the conclusion of the criminal proceedings.
Petar Petrov MP of Vazrazhdane asked why the supreme courts' presidents are not treated on an equal footing but they are excluded from the scope of that provision which targets only the prosecutor general. He argued that the idea to pass urgently this bill is "solely and exclusively to counter the person of the particular incumbent Prosecutor General".
Nikola Minchev MP of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria argued, for his part, that the different treatment of the prosecutor general, on the one hand, and the two supreme courts' presidents, on the other, makes perfect sense because of their different powers, role and possibility of influencing their respective branch of the judiciary and the SJC.
Speaking to journalists later on Friday, Justice Minister Krum Zarkov argued that the different majorities legislated with regard to the election and diselection of the supreme courts' presidents and the prosecutor general were justified by the established international standards and the higher degree of self-governance of the courts.
In his opinion, the issues of the investigation of the prosecutor general and his or her accountability have both found solutions consistent with European standards and the commitments that Bulgaria has assumed under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
"When the law is gazetted and enters into force, it will also be applicable to pending proceedings," Zarkov specified.
Meeting on Thursday, the SJC decided to initiate a procedure for the early dismissal of incumbent Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev.
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