Bulgaria's PM Concerned over Affiliation of Judges to 'One Party'

While Bulgaria's Prosecuting Authority is independent, the fact that "more and more judges" affiliate themselves to a certain political party is an issue of concern, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has said.

In an interview with news website Mediapool, he has noted that a number of judges, including high-profile ones such as the head of the Supreme Court ot Cassation (VKS) Lozan Panov, are increasingly showing their links to the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB) of Radan Kanev.

DSB, a right-wing party, is a member of the Reformist Bloc (RB) coalition which is the junior ally in Borisov's government. Kanev's party, however, announced it was passing into opposition in December (without leaving the RB) over the faiure of Parliament to fully adopt constitutional amendments that would have paved the way, in the words of Kanev, for a comprehensive judicial reform. His decision followed the resignation of Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov after Parliament rejected part of the most disputed amendments.

Some of the judges joined Ivanov and DSB's calls for full judicial reform, protesting against what they call status quo in the judiciary.

In the interview Borisov accuses DSB of trying to take hold of the judiciary in Bulgaria and applying pressure to convince the4 public that the Chief Prosecutor has to be replaced.

He alleges that both VKS and the Sofia City Court are controlled by DSB through their chairmen who are linked to the party.

Since the appointment of Borisov's second government in November of 2014, the judiciary has been under public spotlight, with several scandals related to the random allocation of cases and allegations of corruption among judges and prosecutors. The Reformist Bloc and in particular the DSB...