“Justice Reform Takes Center Stage in Bulgarian Parliament: Accountability for Prosecutors and Independence for Judges”

Today gives serious reason for optimism. May 26 may be remembered as one of the important days in parliamentary history. Judicial reform, which for most Bulgarians sounds like a vague phrase, has finally started to happen – we adopted changes on second reading that begin to ensure that the Prosecutor’s Office will finally have accountability. This was stated by Daniel Laurer from “We continue the change” – “Democratic Bulgaria” on the air of BNT.

“Accountability for prosecutors, independence for judges – this is the path we have taken,” he specified.

“The scandal with the recordings is a cheap attempt. May 26, instead of a first step towards a working prosecutor’s office and justice, is a cheap attempt at a scandal. We have a much more serious task – what are we doing in Bulgaria. The opposing forces were clearly identified – “Vazrazhdane”, BSP, and to some extent the presidency. The latter make fun of them, sneer at them, they clearly disagree with finding a form of government,” he said.

He appealed to the presidency: “Give the second mandate. It is time for Bulgaria to have a real, democratic, parliamentary government.”

The PP revealed how they were recorded and what tricks Radostin Vassilev was playing: This is an emotionally unstable person

“This is another attempt to suggest that we are part of an alliance and our services should work together with allied services and not with Russian ones. For a purge in the administration, I think the issue is more relevant for the presidency. Regarding service appointments and coordination – I don’t think that anything like that has happened”, he added.

“It seems to me that the whole tapes saga gives too much weight to something that is meant to distract public debate from what happened on May 26. Neither before nor now have I used my personal time to judge whether Radostin Vasilev is good or bad. I am firmly convinced that within a year he will leave the party he created just now. There is no need to spend unnecessary time on people irrelevant to the political process, especially in the long term,” he commented.

“They obviously took advantage of the extreme openness of opinion inside the party and outside,” Laurer added.

“Bulgaria faces a severe institutional collapse”. he warned.

He recalled that Academician Nikolay Denkov and Maria Gabriel stated several times that all ministers would be appointed by Denkov: “Rotation has been adopted in many countries around the world. If the governing formula calls for rotation, it should be for the sake of a stable power, not for office rule.”

He specified that he sincerely believes that the chances for the government are better. “Trust is built. It is no secret to anyone that there is none between us and GERB. There was none. In these first steps, of this parliament, we are looking to see if we can build such trust in order to fulfill the things we have already told each other that we must do.”