Bulgaria PM: All Judicial Systems Should Be Subject to Monitoring

The monitoring on Bulgaria's judicial system introduced by the European Commission should also be applied elsewhere, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has told an audience of European justice ministers.

At a conference bringing together Council of Europe ministers with magistrates, Borisov has noted Bulgaria's monitoring should be a "model" for all EU member states as well.

"Countries with the most developed judicial systems are most likely to admit their mistakes," daily Standart quotes him as saying.

He has made clear that Bulgaria's Justice Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva, at whose invitation the conference is being held, is already preparing changes that will be in line with both the expectation of Bulgarians and the outlook of the CoE that will be under discussion on Thursday and Friday.

Borisov is one of the keynote speakers alongside CoE Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland and Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov.

In his opening speech, Jagland has noted that the judicial systems of a number of countries were marked by corruption and insufficient funding.

He added there were alarming cases of countries where a strong executive branch was hindering progress of the judiciary.  

Throughout the discussions Mr Jagland will present a Council of Europe action plan to boost judicial systems' independence.

The Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) was introduced in the mid-2000s as a prerequisite to Bulgaria and Romania's entry into the European Union.