Ms. Margarita Popova, Minister of Justice

Ms. Popova, you have set forth an ambitious legislative program. You started out with many changes in the criminal legislation, in laws that would restrict corruption practices. This was done with a council of magistrates, with expert help, with a public council which included an NGO sector. What changes have been made and what are forthcoming?
2009 was a challenging year for the entire Bulgarian people. The government’s mandate expired, elections were held and a new government came to power with a very ambitious program of radical reforming actions, so that both the Bulgarian citizens and our European partners would soon notice a progress of the whole nation.

Within the mechanism for cooperation and verification, with the EC we drew a schedule for the government, which included 57 measures with different addressees – the Ministry of Justice, the judicial system, the customhouses, the National Revenue Agency, the Prosecutor’s Office, the courts, among others. This, together with a quite sizable initiative for legislative changes, showed clearly the Bulgarian government’s vision for judiciary reforms. As a key priority of the government we set the fight against corruption and organized crime. These 57 measures, including legislative initiatives, have a very strong anticorruption charge. On the whole, they cover two fields of legislation: the judicial system setup legislation (The Judiciary Act) and the procedural laws, such as our attempt to update criminal proceedings and make them more efficient. Since such are the views of Bulgarian magistrates, who want to work with better procedures, like their colleagues within the EU.

I am very happy that we fulfilled this schedule almost a hundred percent in all measures. Very important bills passed through the Council of Ministers, some of them are already in Parliament, others will be introduced very soon, in March. This is our announcement of the path, the starting point and the willingness to work really actively, offensively and consistently in the field of the judiciary reform and anticorruption legislation. We needed to address these issues because Bulgaria has been a member of EU for three years now. Since December 1, 2009 the Treaty of Lisbon is also in effect, giving new points of departure. We have to fulfil tasks in cooperation with the other European states. We will increasingly need to work in joint initiative. Support initiatives of other states or generate initiatives on how to make criminal law and criminal procedure law so good as to render the results from combating crime visible to the people, and all together, in cooperation with the 27 Member States, to provide for the European citizens a Europe as a space of freedom, security and access to justice. This is the accent and the slogan of the Stockholm Program, which my colleague, the Minister of Justice of Spain will have the privilege and responsibility, together with all of us, to implement in the next six months.

I am very strongly committed to these ideas, to the idea the Bulgarian magistracy, the Bulgarian judicial system to become part of the good traditions, the good European practices as soon as possible. With you, Journalists Against Corruption Club, we have worked for a long time on these issues. Compliments on your persistence, your perseverance, on all the good things you have done in the past few years for the judicial system, above all the prosecutor’s office, for the Bulgarian institutions to meet the European, to demonstrate collaboration with NGOs, on all the results we have achieved together. Our present conversation is also part of this endeavour, so I will continue to work in this direction together with you, together with my colleagues, with the European Ministers of Justice, for the European free space. This is the future for us and our children, and I will not give up working for it, whatever it costs me.

You have already made the first step: together with the Spanish Minister of Justice you have started work on a new European directive. It actually proceeds from Bulgaria and Spain, which is currently President of the European Union. Would you tell us a bit more about it?
Indeed this is our first initiative after the Lisbon Treaty entered into force. I joined my colleague, the Spanish Minister of Justice, with a letter declaring support. The Directive on protection of European citizens, who have suffered or are threatened by a crime, was conceived already when the Stockholm Program was discussed, in the context of harmonizing the principle and ways of realization and guaranteeing the rights of perpetrators, on the one hand, but on the other – with a greater and stronger accent – guaranteeing the rights and protection of crime victims. In broad terms, when a European citizen in a particular country has been a victim of crime and with respect to him the national court, in the order of the respective national law, has ruled certain protective measures, these measures can attend him in another EU member state. The European space is unified, it has to guarantee unified and equal rights and opportunities for protection of this man. Then the European citizens will be secure, then this space will be theirs, they will feel it as their own, they will be committed to guarding it as their own.

It is a very good initiative which, of course, is still to be discussed, because the national laws of the member states are still too different, even in the penal law sphere. But now dialogue will be speeded up. We will talk and discuss how to become closer to each other in order to guarantee the force, tranquillity and the opportunity for equal protection in any part of the new European state. The Spanish Presidency is happy that Bulgaria supports this initiative and became co-introducer of the directive project. This was stated back in November when we had talks with my counterpart in Spain. He said he relied on the Bulgarian state very much. So, in the next six months we will have many joint activities useful for the European future.

As you mentioned, we have been working for a long time for many changes that should have been made in Bulgaria. One of the themes we looked into deeply was the Spanish experience related to specialization. Will there be changes in this sphere in Bulgaria, too, will specialized structures be established?
Being a committed person, you have studied well the schedule of the Bulgarian Government. You must have noticed that one of the 57 measures treats precisely this matter – establishment of specialized teams within the Bulgarian juridical system – in the prosecutor’s office and in the court in parallel, which will deal with the so-called “lawsuits of high public interest.” More specifically corruption, economic crimes, defence of the financial interests of EU, trans-border criminality. Such specialized teams have been tested in Europe and in Spain. As you know, we had a wonderful project in Spain. We visited Spain and we were all convinced how effectively and efficiently a structure can operate when under one roof are gathered people specializing in the same line. Specialization is the basis of professionalism. Not only in Spain in the early 1990s, in Germany they started in the same way – after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the communist nomenclature in Eastern Europe specialized teams were set up to combat organized crime. These structures have given good results both in Germany and Spain.

In Bulgaria this model was established in October 2008, following the unfavourable reports of the European Commission and OLAF, which justly criticized the lack of results in this field and the inability of the country to cope, to show vision, willingness and capacities to work so as to produce results. After all, Bulgaria is an EU member and we need to play and live by the rules. After all, any government is obliged to ensure tranquillity for its citizens, so they can live freely and happily in their own country, and not seek luck elsewhere because of the bad life in their country. Then we established the specialized unit for protection of EU financial interests, and also misappropriation of EU funds. Then we should have set up the joint teams within the prosecutor’s office to work on organized crime, but owing to resistance on the part of the political power this did not happen. Now they are a fact. But this is not enough. Firstly, these specialized teams are a first step towards joint work and specialization of magistrates. Secondly, the same thing should happen in the court. When prosecutors and investigative bodies specialize in the same direction, they go deep into the subject matter. But when a case like this comes for the first time to a colleague, who is otherwise an excellent specialist in various kinds of lawsuits, he will feel unconfident. This will be felt in the courtroom, by the parties and by the public. Therefore this person needs to have passed specialization, due training and everything the executive power owes to people dealing with such hard subject matter. Then people would get adequate, fair, lawful justice. So, specialization of the courts or, at first, of specialized units within the existing penal sections, would be useful.

Of course, not all courts need such specialized units. It would be sufficient if specialization began in the larger regional courts or in the structures of appeal. The next step is to have specialized courts, specialized prosecutor’s offices. As regards protection of the financial interests of EU, fortunately, we already have the foundation in Bulgaria, even though still fragile. The unit for combating EU fund frauds, which is in its second year of operation, and which I headed, continues to give positive results. Under the leadership of Angelina Mitova they solve cases, they have become wonderful specialists, gone deep into the subject matter. Some day, when a specialized prosecutor’s office is established to work for the protection of the financial interests of the Community, our foundation is ready as a structure and staff. Maybe we should work a little on the legislative base, and here is something that encourages any European citizen – the fact that Bulgaria is able and capable. The European citizen can be protected in Bulgaria. Otherwise we would not feel well and would not have European self-confidence. I wouldn’t like that.

Shall we have a new Criminal Code and when?
There will be a new Criminal Code. There is a working group formed at the Ministry of Justice at the end of last year, headed by Prof. Alexander Stoynov, which has already had several sessions. The Criminal Code is a normative act of such rank that it would be frivolous to draw it in a couple of months. If we want to have something really solid, which would serve a long time, we need to work carefully, look into all things that are important in its structuring. Our ambition is within 12 to 18 months to present the bill for public discussion.

You will ask, why before we started work on the new Criminal Code we proposed to the National Assembly to adopt partial amendments to the existing code, and I will tell you right away. Our government came with a primary task to combat organized crime and corruption, and the philosophy of and emphasis on stronger government hand are very important to us. The premier and all ministers agreed that the penalties for a certain kind of crimes must be increased because we consider that at a time when the state is in crisis, when crimes grow, at the same time the new minister of the interior has made it his clear objective and commitment to mobilize the security structures in the country, one of the options for prevention is legislative changes in this direction. What is more, the steps we have undertaken are in line with the priorities set by the European Union in the Stockholm Program – protection of the victims of organized crime, protection of the victims of trafficking, protection of minors. This is precisely where our suggestions for amendments in the Criminal Code are. After all, the law has to correspond to life as it is in a particular moment. I think these changes will work and will justify our efforts.