/ world today news/ Losing his last hopes that at least 160 votes will be gathered in the National Assembly to support the first reading of the amendments to the Constitution, formally introduced by deputies, but prepared by an unknown consultant of the Ministry of Justice, the line minister Hristo Ivanov made his biggest management mistake since the beginning of his political career a year ago. As they say in such cases – “my tongue, my enemy”:
“Things are quite clear to me because we have a measure in the Judicial Reform Strategy that clearly says that decisions on career matters, that is, the final act, should be taken by the collegium of judges for judges and the collegium of prosecutors for prosecutors. This is something voted by the National Assembly with the votes of the DPS and all the parties that are participating in the negotiation process these days,” said Hristo Ivanov on Tuesday regarding the current proposal – decisions on the career development of magistrates should be made by the Plenum of the Supreme Judicial Council (SC), which will include the members of the two future colleges – the judge and the prosecutor-investigator.
Probably nervous, probably disheartened, probably aware of the previous mistakes he made in the past months, in attempts to push through the “judicial reform”, but absolutely unacceptable and categorically unjustified for a sitting Minister of Justice, to allow himself to put any Strategy, even the one he personally wrote over every single law, much less over the Constitution. For the minister’s information, in our country there are over 130 active strategies and only one Basic Law. Only the Strategies for judicial reform in the last 26 years are at least four or five.
With this statement, Hristo Ivanov only confirms what was written in BGNES as early as October 17, 2014, immediately after the presentation by Hristo Ivanov of the Updated Strategy for Judicial Reform. In the comment “Let’s bark the dogs… of Themis” we pointed out what is behind the division of the SJC into two collegiums and why this should not be accepted:
“The updated Strategy for judicial reform itself contains nothing more than the views that the group of non-governmental organizations, headed by the Union of Judges in Bulgaria, present as the only possible alternative for treating the system. For the most part, the Strategy copies the theses, which are much more loudly presented by Hristo Ivanov while heading the Bulgarian Institute for Legal Initiatives. As expected, the document pays serious attention to the status of judges, but precisely because of this, it will not meet the support of the Supreme Judicial Council, the prosecutors and the investigators, and probably the Bulgarian Judges’ Association – the professional organization alternative to the SJC. The possibility of judges encapsulating themselves and thus guaranteeing their inviolability will be the easiest argument with which the Strategy will be rejected, and hence the division of the SJC into two chambers.”
As they say – what is said goes away, what is written remains! With the small clarification that the rejection of the encapsulation of the “judicial” and/or “prosecutor-investigative” collegiums will most likely happen through the Constitution and through the upcoming changes to the Judiciary Act. Yes, in January the deputies adopted the Strategy for Judicial Reform. They did it more “for information” and with the clear awareness that the final decisions will be made after debates and voting on changes in the laws and in the Constitution. For better or for worse, it is so in democracies, those with traditions and in the young, because it ensures that no ruler would allow himself to abuse the temporary power he enjoys. The other would be anarchy and the outright pursuit of personal ambition. And every manager must know that the world will have to continue to exist tomorrow…
#reform #strategies #Constitution
