The Parliament adopted on first reading all three bills for amendments and supplements to the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC). Two of the bills were submitted by the caretaker cabinet of Andrey Gyurov, and the third - by Yordan Ivanov („Democratic Bulgaria“) and a group of MPs.
This was summarized by BTA.
The first bill of the caretaker government provides for the introduction of mandatory judicial control for justification and legality over the decrees for termination or suspension of criminal proceedings for corruption crimes committed by persons holding public positions. The amendments are related to the implementation of the commitments under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
The proposed amendments aim to introduce effective institutional control over the actions of the ad hoc prosecutor who investigates the Prosecutor General or his deputies, which has been practically absent to date.
Amendments to the Judicial System Act provide that the control will be carried out by a judge from the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Cassation (supervising prosecutor), who will be randomly selected from a list approved by the General Assembly of the Criminal Chamber. The list should include judges with the highest rank and experience in criminal justice. The supervising prosecutor will be selected at the time the proceedings are initiated, thus preventing a period in which the actions of the investigating prosecutor remain unsupervised.
The second draft law from the Cabinet contains amendments aimed at the full and correct transposition and implementation of EU directives on procedural rights. At present, the European Commission has initiated and is in various stages of proceedings against Bulgaria to establish violations in relation to these directives.
The amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, submitted by Yordan Ivanov and MPs from “Democratic Bulgaria“, propose the introduction of rapid and effective judicial control over the 72-hour prosecutorial detention. At present, there is no mechanism for direct judicial review immediately after detention, which creates a risk of unjustified infringement of personal freedom, the submitters point out.
The draft laws of the caretaker cabinet were supported by MPs from all parliamentary groups, except the MPs from the MRF, who voted “against”. The third bill by Yordan Ivanov was unanimously adopted by the parliament.
Regarding investigations into cases of crimes committed by the Prosecutor General or his deputies, Silvia Hristova ("Progressive Bulgaria") commented that it is appropriate to consider whether to refine the judicial control and reach the Supreme Court of Cassation as the last resort.
Petar Petrov ("Vazrazhdane") supported the creation of a new procedure for mandatory judicial control of corruption crimes. Such control should also include the termination of serious crimes, such as a traffic offense committed by a senior politician or serious bodily harm committed by a relative of a magistrate, he pointed out.
Stefan Arsov (GERB-SDF) said that his parliamentary group would support all three bills, which are largely the fruit of intellectual work of the previous regular cabinet of Rosen Zhelyazkov. The goal is more efficiency, control and trust in criminal proceedings, he noted.
Nadezhda Yordanova ("Democratic Bulgaria") pointed out that the first bill submitted by the office cabinet resolves issues related to elements of ineffectiveness of the Prosecutor General's investigation mechanism, and the second bill resolves the issue of the rights of persons against whom procedural actions have been taken, but who have not yet acquired the status of defendants.
Velislav Velichkov ("We continue the change") drew attention to the fact that changes are also being made to the Special Intelligence Means Act (SIR) and it regulates how SIRs are requested by the ad hoc prosecutor. According to him, the text should be clarified with the subjects who can request SIRs and those who control them.