Bulgarian Justice Minister Confers with EC Secretary General Day

Brussels, July 9 (BTA Correspondent Nikolay Jeliazkov) -
Bulgarian Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov was received here on
Thursday by European Commission Secretary-General Catherine Day,
 who is leaving office this coming autumn.

The two discussed the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism
(CVM) and the judicial reform in Bulgaria.

"We are approaching an exceedingly important point at which we
will take the important step towards reorganizing the judicial
system management. This step is crucial for severing the
systemic elements of the model that make possible corruption and
 influence in the court, for having a new level of
responsibility in these institutions on which decision-making
and working arrangements in the judicial system depends.
Evidently, this is at the core of all problems," Ivanov
commented to Bulgarian journalists in Brussels in connection
with numerous publications attacking his reform efforts.

"Catherine Day also noted that we may carry out a lot of other
reforms, try to optimize criminal procedure, reform legal
education, personnel selection, but if we don't have a
responsible leadership at the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) we
can by no means expect any of these changes produce a result.
Whatever instruments we set up, if there is nobody to implement
them with the proper will, competence and legitimacy, they will
simply not work," the Justice Minister pointed out.

"From this point of view, this is a decisive moment: either we
Bulgarian politicians and magistracy heads will decide to take a
 step forward from this point or not. Obviously, there is a huge
 resistance, and obviously this resistance comes from people who
 like the existing model. But the existing model is not liked by
 Bulgarian citizens. The choice is absolutely clear, the masks
are going down now, and everybody must take a side," Ivanov
argued.

"The European Commission notes the positive results related to
the Sofia City Court, the fact that Bulgarian judges were active
 in initiating the renewal of such an important court, the
launch of disciplinary proceedings, the drawing up of a SJC
report. Questions about random case assignment were raised.
Unfortunately, I could not say that the new software is already
in place. The general message is that even though Day is going,
the CVM will stay and until we achieve a new level of leadership
 in the judiciary, we can't possibly convince the European
Commission that it can expect consistent results in combating
high-level corruption," the Justice Minister explained.

He added that Day and he discussed the amendments to the
Bulgarian Constitution, the debate on the Judicial System Act,
the forthcoming discussions on the Prevention of High-Level
Corruption Act. "She asked whether these pieces of legislation
enjoy political support," Ivanov specified. Day expressly
stressed that the European Commission and the Minister must have
 a common position on the need of organizational changes in the
SJC and the prosecuting magistracy as envisaged in the reform
strategy. In Ivanov's words, the European Commission does not
expect separate results but an adequate reaction from the
Bulgarian authorities within their competence to each particular
 case.

The EC Secretary General pointed out that even though she will
vacate her present position which also covers the CVM, the
Commission's commitment remains just as strong. The Commission
wishes that the mechanism should cease to be needed as soon as
possible. "As long as there are no tangible and consistent
results in Sofia, this cannot possibly happen," Ivanov summed
up.