The Attorney General has not made a useful move, which was obviously the goal
Within just one month, the National Assembly sent a second request to Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev for a report on the activities of the prosecution in a certain area. The first request of the MPs was for a report concerning the activity of the Bureau of Protection. As of this Wednesday, he is now available to MPs, and what he understands at first reading is that he refutes allegations that the Bureau of Defense did not guard anyone but prosecutor №1.
However, the next report by the prosecutor’s office is on the agenda – with data on police violence and the actions taken to sanction it. There is no doubt – the police must protect public order and security of citizens, without leading to excesses like the ones we all saw from the records under the columns of the Council of Ministers. But to dedicate an entire parliamentary day, moreover, to convening an extraordinary session of parliament to listen to spells and party declarations from the rostrum of parliament, which resembled moments of a people’s tribunal, comes a little more. Finally, on Tuesday, the deputies asked Geshev for information by Friday about the ongoing investigations into police violence, whether there were any delays in them and notice – the specific names of the supervising prosecutors. However, this goes beyond the legal powers that MPs have. Perhaps because of this, on Monday morning the Prosecutor General reminded them that under the Constitution and even with a deliberate decision of 2017 of the Constitutional Court, the parliamentary control functions over the activities of the prosecution are severely limited. This is to ensure the independence of the individual authorities and the secrecy of investigations. Geshev also reminded them that he has no right to disclose data on specific pre-trial proceedings that have not been completed, etc. It is not clear on what grounds the names of the magistrates who conduct certain pre-trial proceedings are requested. They are no secret, but this deliberate staring is sometimes the result of unhealthy interest, and can be seen as an attempt to put pressure on them. However, this is exactly what the parliamentarians demanded, and the response of the Prosecutor General must be ready within three days.
The question from now on is – will the chief prosecutor fall into the trap set for him by the deputies? If he refuses to send them a report or to appear at the hearing, Ivan Geshev will be accused of not respecting the will of the National Assembly and this will be grounds for a request to the Supreme Judicial Council for his removal. If he provides them with the requested information, prosecutor №1 risks exceeding his powers, disclosing information from the pre-trial phase and also being accused of not complying with the constitutionally established rules. A separate topic is that it is not the head of the prosecutor’s office who monitors the deadlines in cases and investigations, but this is the duty of the Inspectorate of the Judiciary.
It turns out that the chief prosecutor does not make a useful move, which was obviously the goal of the representatives of four of the parties in the National Assembly – ITN, BSP, DB and IBGNI, which provoked the debate on police violence on Tuesday. It was not very clear what exactly was the point of this meeting – to attack Ivan Geshev once again, to accuse police officers of losing their temper or to tighten the ranks of the so-called “protest parties” before the election. . The whole construction resembles a Bulgarian version of the #Black Life Matter movement in the United States, which was activated after the murder of a black police officer, George Floyd. No one justifies the police arbitrariness, but somehow it would have been fair if the deputies had paid little attention to all those police officers who were humiliated, beaten, beaten and insulted at all kinds of protests. It would have been good if the parliamentarians had read the comments of the viewers, who followed the debate on social media in real time. In this way, they would understand that there are probably many more citizens who are critical of the violence that was perpetrated during the protests against the uniformed men themselves. Not to mention the multitude of data and revelations about the paid organization of some of the protesters. How do Bulgarian parliamentarians think – whether in the Bundestag or in any other European Parliament, with a light hand, will look unilaterally at situations in which it is possible that passions will prevail. There are certainly culprits, both among the police and among the “peaceful” professional protesters and provocateurs. It is even more absurd to claim that someone “from above” ordered the police to beat protesters, which was not lacking in comments. MPs insulted the police in general, although they claimed that there were many honest and fair professionals among the police. MPs should be aware that the responsibility for destroying the foundations of the state, which should be the police uniform, this time will be theirs. But there is no other way if so many outspoken populists and power-lovers fall into the second National Assembly.
The very hearing of the caretaker Interior Minister lost its meaning at the moment when, in an attempt to repulsively answer a critical question addressed to him, Boyko Rashkov began to share memories of the investigation of Petar Mladenov’s famous remark “better tanks come”, which he led 31 years ago. Extremely disrespectful and ill-intentioned was Rashkov’s attempt to suggest that one of our European delegated prosecutors, Veronika Trifonova, had won this position after terminating the pre-trial proceedings for police violence. It is noteworthy that Rashkov often allows himself to name the names of magistrates under the road and over the road in a negative way, although he is well aware that this is a gross violation of the rule of law. But with this next attack on a Bulgarian magistrate, Rashkov exposed himself to the police. To claim that the College of European Prosecutors and the European Prosecutor General Laura Coveschi have confirmed the choice of a magistrate proposed by the Bulgarian side because he has decided in a certain way a specific proceeding is a great nonsense. The responsibility for this nonsense also lies with the president, who apparently admires the outrageous public behavior of the interior minister he appointed.
It is an honor for Prosecutor Trifonova and it is good to have such worthy and brave magistrates like her that she immediately refuted Rashkov’s manipulations. Moreover, Trifonova also revealed the main reason for the termination of the investigation – the lawyer of the victims (some of whom were in the hall of the National Assembly on Tuesday) – MP Nikolay Hadjigenov made them not testify. Somehow it seems that yesterday, as a lawyer, you made such a serious procedural blunder, and today you try to take advantage of the failure of the investigation, for which it is entirely your fault. This important detail greatly discredits Hadjigenov as chairman of the Temporary Committee of the Parliament, engaged in checking what happened at the protests on July 10 and September 2 last year and in general the whole idealess existence of the committee in question.
If MPs aimed to benefit from their work, they would not waste time on meaningless hearings or procedural tricks, trying to force the Attorney General to explain to them cases that he neither investigates nor has the opportunity to directly affects their output. If they wanted a full hearing of Geshev, they would not delay their formation of commissions for a whole month. At least now, when we finally have a legal committee of the parliament, it is most logical to start discussing the Annual Report of the Prosecutor’s Office, which has long been submitted to the National Assembly. The same applies to the reports of the Supreme Court of Cassation, the Supreme Administrative Court and the courts as well as the ISJC and the SJC.
However, it seems that the deputies do not take seriously the real part of their work. It is somehow more profitable for them to waste public resources to ask three ministries to support the “fake news” about the illegitimacy of the Prosecutor General’s higher legal education than to discuss policies, legal amendments and other decisions, but which they may turn out to be unpopular with voters, and elections are coming again. The people’s representation is obviously slipping on the wave of populism, in search of spectacular and easy to play cases, but in the end it does not turn out that instead of a trap for another, it has fallen into its own.
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