5. Independence of the Judiciary and fair trial
In 2011, the independence of the courts suffered serious attacks, both from the executive branch, primarily in the person of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Tsvetan Tsvetanov, as well as from the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) and its Inspectorate (ISJC). Parliament also contributed to the creation of dependencies within the judicial system. No institution took an appropriate corrective position in response. At the same time, judicial reforms did not progress and no optimization of its management was achieved, in particular regarding the magistrates’ work-loads and their evaluation. On 30 May, the SJC elected Judge Vladimira Yaneva to the post of chairperson of the largest and most important court in the country, the Sofia City Court (SCC); Yaneva is distinguished solely for her connections to Deputy Prime Minister Tsvetanov, whose aggressive policy of gaining command of the judicial system via controllable people in key positions and the intimidation of the rest has become notorious. This scandalous appointment provoked unprecedented civil tension and the most influential judges’ organization, the reform-minded Bulgarian Judges Association (BJA), demanded the SJC’s resignation, after which two of its members, well-respected judges, left the body in sign of protest. Other distinguished organizations and media outlets joined in applying pressure, but to no effect. Neither the SJC nor the minister of justice nor the prime
minister nor parliament demonstrated any institutional responsibility for solving the crisis with the fully discredited SJC. Instead, on 2 July, Deputy Prime Minister Tsvetanov threatened to name police actions after the given names of judges to punish them for not imposing detention on remand on individuals suspected by the Interior Ministry. With this public statement, which was symptomatic of his ambition to subordinate the courts, he confirmed his intentions to continue his political pressure on the judiciary. Several days later, the BHC demanded his resignation over this, but he declined to submit it. The justice minister, the prime minister, parliament and the SJC remained uninvolved. In June, the ISJC conducted a special unprecedented check of the whole criminal division of the SCC with the goal of blurring the responsibility of the newly appointed court chairperson for her confirmed abuses in cases (in connection with a concrete complaint against her) and, at the same time, to penalize with disciplinary measures prominent representatives of the BJA, which was positioning itself as a significant opponent of the government with tangible civic influence. Before the ISJC suggested disciplinary punishment against the emblematic chairwoman of the BJA, Miroslava Todorova, the head inspector and members of the SJC openly announced in the media their negative attitudes towards her and her expressions of her critical opinion about the state of the judicial branch. Their remarks reflect-