The Bulgarian Judges Association Monday issued a position on the reaction to the violence against an 18-year-old girl in Stara Zagora (Southern Bulgaria). It was published on the organization's Facebook page.
"Street justice and calls on the public to punish the judges and the accused signify a general failure, not just a defeat of the disempowered and disdained judiciary, but also of the citizens themselves, because, consciously or not, they unleash uncontrollable waves of aggression, which at some point, in other circumstances, may sweep them away as well," the Judges Association said.
It is normal for people to sympathize with every victim, especially the victim of a crime which involves physical violence and humiliates a physically vulnerable person, the organization said. "However, it is precisely empathy and genuine concern that should restrain us from getting carried away in dispensing street justice."
The attitude towards the panel of the Stara Zagora District Court and particularly towards the reporting judge is evidence of the failure of the judges to win sufficient trust to be heard out in peace, of the political authorities to conduct persuasive enough policies explaining why it is bad for the court to elucidate its actions outside the case, and of society as a whole, because "we have allowed calls to be made for lynching the judge".
Earlier on Monday, Delyan Peevski MP of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms asked the Inspectorate with the Supreme Judicial Council to consider the case and hold to account the judges from the court in Stara Zagora who released from custody the man who inflicted multiple wounds on the girl in late June.
/PP/
