Parliament blamed for justice system paralysis

Prof. Plamen Panayotov, head of the Department of Criminal Sciences at Sofia University, placed responsibility for the current state of the justice system on parliament. He said lawmakers lack the political will to appoint their quota to the Supreme Judicial Council, violating constitutional duties. He called the council the state’s primary institution for defending citizens and criticized its failure to act.

Panayotov argued that public protests over judicial issues should target parliament, not other institutions. He noted the acting prosecutor general was chosen in 2023 under a clear condition and that his appointment faced no legal challenge. Regarding the Kotsev case, he questioned why prosecutors did not seek the accused’s temporary removal from his mayoral post rather than resorting to pretrial detention. He warned that detaining suspects before completing preliminary investigations risks turning detention into a tool for evidence gathering, which contradicts its legal purpose. He urged stricter rules limiting detention to exceptional cases with solid evidence after a full investigation.