On March 25 the Bulgarian parliament adopted at a first reading changes within the Penal Procedure Code /PPC/. The amendments had been submitted by different parliamentary groups and were adopted in an unusually unanimous manner. Their main goal is to raise the effectiveness of detention measures and also of the other forms of legal constraint, imposed to defendants and prisoners of the bar. The prevention of escapes has been accentuated on, also via the implementation of monitoring. Deputy Minister of Justice Petko Petkov commented for RB that electronic tagging could be used in a limited number of cases and wouldn’t solve the issue with sentenced, but wanted persons:

“It is truly justified when we talk on home confinement, as it provides better control at а lower cost,” Mr. Petkov said and added: “A warrant will be necessary for the putting of bracelets to heavy criminals.”

According to him, the work of the investigation and search services with the interior ministry has to be improved, as those, he says:

“Sometimes they appear to find it impossible to discover persons that are not even hiding. So, we are talking here on the interior ministry’s capacity and whether its employees need some additional training, also how that can become reality. Perhaps sometimes we are talking on a deliberate failure to do their job…”

Other strategic directions, regarding these legislative changes envisage the easing of several regimes and the incriminating of actions that have not been considered crimes till now. One of the proposals envisages driving while intoxicated cases to become misdemeanors and not felonies. According to Petkov the work of the interior ministry and the prosecution will be eased by some 25 percent and they will be able to focus on more serious crimes this way:

“At the moment the penalty provided is up to 1 year in prison, which often means probation and taking away of the driving license for a longer term – the latter is the only thing that the defendants are practically concerned about. Actually the confiscation of the driving license has the greatest effect.”

That proposal faced the serious opposition of the NGO sector 5 years ago and was withdrawn. Now the justice ministry also proposes:

“We propose the incrimination of several actions that are not felonies now or the respective legislative texts are not precise enough. These are any deeds, related to the siphoning of EU funding. The stealing of a company for instance can be incriminated in a very successful manner, as it does concern the interests of all citizens. On the other hand the system of justice fails to cope with this type of behavior.”

An amendment has been proposed, incriminating the propaganda of hatred and violence, grounded on political reasons, but Deputy Minister Petkov says that the proposal will drop due to the lack of public approval and fears of political censorship. The forthcoming second reading of the changes in the Penal Procedure Code will show whether this will happen.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev