Sofia and Bucharest: two cities - which were Soviet satellites yesterday, passing through the hearth of the democratic transition, reaching today when they won their place as European capitals. And as in the novel by Dickens - comparing London and Paris - and in our history it shows that both capitals represent something: a common goal - for change, hope and materialization.
Our main objective is to change the way of life - the desire of the average person to stop using the phrase ‘I arranged to work’ with ‘I found, I fought for the position, that I wanted.’ This change comes with hope for our common European future in which we are a part of the most developed countries in the world and are separated from our Russian dependencies.
To achieve these dreams of two cities in third place comes the battle.
A battle with the oligarch model with a corrupt political system that uses "the way of connections" rather than "the road to success." Today in our society it is clear that it cannot share western prosperity solely as a substitute for communist slogans with European values. We must enforce them and their incorporation into the foundations of the state can only be achieved when they demolish these old pillars that support the status quo.
And just in the destruction of this communist stand, our two cities - Sofia and Bucharest - differ. In one we talk about government behind bars - because in recent years Bucharest has been imprisoning enough ministers so that there are enough to hold a ministerial council meeting from prison. Government officials, MPs, businessmen - all of them are headed for state prosecution. To such an extent that the Romanian lawyer Ion Cazacu describes the country as "the Republic of prosecutors."
On the other side of the Danube, in the ‘republic of oligarchs’ – a fear of the law and the court does not exist. What is the difference between the two countries? Why are the two countries, as close as they are culturally, socially and historically, the two cities - Sofia and Bucharest – why today do they differ from one another in terms of justice?
The answer is rooted in the ongoing reform that started in 2005, held by the then Justice Minister Monica Macovei. Her work is continued by people who inherited it, and today the results are clear - in Romania, even the most senior officials are not omnipotent, even they can land in jail.
ANI and NDCC - the heart of justice reform
Two institutions are the foundation of the success of Bucharest. The NDCC (National Directorate for Combating Corruption) is part of the prosecution and is headed by the Deputy Prosecutor General, but he was not there through connections, nor assigned by his supervisor Prosecutor. The head of the NDCC passes through the public process and responsible for his appointment lies with the political parties. To be elected, he must be proposed by the Minister of Justice approved by the Romanian Judicial Council and finally appointed by the President.
This procedure, on the one hand, ensures its independence from the Attorney General. On the other, commits Romanian politicians with his candidature. This is in stark contrast to the Bulgarian model, in which the entire prosecution is directly subordinate to the Attorney General, and an anonymous authority elects him, as SJC is not accountable to anyone. This is why the Romanian Prosecutor's Office is under constant pressure to show results. It is both independent, but accountable to the public. To ensure its independence, the NDCC has its own police apparatus and financial analysts, and prosecutors in it go through a very serious selection process, in which psychologists define their tendency to be bribed or made subject of a bribe.
Individual employees receive higher wages and a six-year term.
Here again is a difference from the Bulgarian model. It specializes criminal prosecution (which is perhaps the closest analogue of NDCC) is entirely dependent on the Attorney General and the personnel policy of the SJC; it deals with many cases and is not intended solely to combat corruption. Also Bulgarian prosecutors are forced to rely on external financial expertise and police apparatuses. A curious fact is that much of the evidence collected by the NDCC, are based on a set of they themselves undercover. A similar structure in Bulgaria will require coordination with several institutions. This fact threatens leaking information about secret operations and obliges services to continually to comply with one another.
Besides the Directorate for Combating Corruption (NDCC), of particular importance for the Romanian success is the State Agency "Integrity" (ANI). This is the Financial Control, which aims to carry out investigations on all sorts of financial transactions to determine whether there is no conflict of interest, corruption, and illegally acquired property among others. Many of the cases initiated by NDCC are based on information submitted by ANI.
Unlike Romania, in Bulgaria an institution like this does not exist.
In our country there are many units investigating one or another related to corruption activities: Court of Auditors, the NRA, the Commission for conflict of interest, the Commission for withdrawal of the illegally acquired property and an endless list of impotent inspectorates at all government offices. This means spraying in all sorts of places as a method of combating corruption, and puts the investigating authorities as dependents. For one case they should request information from several institutions and hope the other side will have the competence to perform a quality check. Apart from this, as we showed the case with CCB, it enables institutions to constantly blame each other, why they were not investigated or found abuses in the bank.
Thus Bulgaria was built on a model of irresponsibility, organizational chaos, and frustration and represses those who want change. And the reason for establishing this model is the willingness of the political class in Bulgaria to implement reforms only on paper. There have been created impersonal and weak institutions – registered as a business, but actually do not achieve any results. And the results are obvious - none.
"It was the best times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, epoch of belief, age of unbelief..."
Hardly the Romanian model is a universal recipe for an effective judicial system. Hardly in Romania has disappeared all problems with corruption, and let's not forget that not only the institutions are responsible for success, what’s important are the people in them. But Romanian history clearly shows us one thing - that Bulgaria can do it too. Comparing ourselves to long-established democracies and developed economies of the West has always been only a ‘taste,’ claiming ‘there’s time,’ ‘they are like that because they have not gone through Communism’, ‘we are different.’ Well, today it is clear that these are just excuses that only delay public reform for tired and discouraged citizens.
Today it is essential to apply pressure to implement genuine judicial reform: one that will prove that Bulgaria can do it.
The author of the article is Yordan Tsalov, a law student at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski". Yordan helps MOVE.BG in the ‘Law and Order: Justice in five steps’ initiative. He has won competitions in Law and International Relations and wants to participate in projects that make a difference.
