Supreme court

The head of the Supreme Court of Appeals has criticized planned changes at the body, which introduce new departments and adjust the appointment system for judges and prosecutors, describing the plans as an “open government intervention” in the judiciary.

BELGRADE - Around 120,000 trials have been postponed in the two months since the start of the lawyer strike in Serbia, President of the Supreme Court and High Judicial Council Dragomir Milojevic has told the daily Politika.

The precise number of the postponed trials is not known because not all courts have kept records on this, he noted.

The Supreme Court has decided that four men who stood trial earlier this year for shooting 28 migrant workers at a strawberry farm in Nea Manolada in the Peloponnese should not be retried.

The National Integrity Agency (ANI) has asked the Supreme Court of Justice and Cassation (ICCJ) for earlier consideration of the incompatibility case regarding national leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL) and presidential candidate Klaus Iohannis.

Bulgaria's Supreme Judicial Council (VSS) has failed to elect a Chair of the Military Appellate Court.

There were two candidates for the post, including Svilen Aleksandrov, Chair of the Sofia Military Court, and Dimitar Fikiin, judge at the Military Appellate Court.

None of the two candidates received the necessary 13 votes to win the post.

The General Assembly of the Supreme Court of Appeals (Yargıtay) has elected three original and three substitute members for the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK)

The Supreme Court on Tuesday postponed the hearing of an appeal by the Finance Ministry with regard to a First Instance Court instructing the ministry to rehire a group of 393 cleaners placed in a civil service mobility scheme last year. The Supreme Court will convene again over the matter on February 24, 2015.

A delegation representing 393 Finance Ministry cleaners who were placed in a civil service mobility scheme last year, were in the second day of a three-day visit to Strasbourg on Tuesday, where they are holding meetings with unionists and members of the European Parliament.

The Sofia Appellate Court has reduced the sentence of alleged drug boss Zlatomir Ivanov, aka Zlatko Baretata (The Beret), from 8 to 6.5 years of imprisonment.

A column I wrote 14 years ago was titled: “Witch-hunt in the judiciary.” It was those years when the Feb. 28 guys were ruling the state. Those judges and prosecutors who did not make decisions the way they wanted were blacklisted as “reactionist.” They also had a decree prepared for this purpose.