Within the space of just 24 hours more than 12,000 people signed a petition calling for a sentence of life imprisonment (there is no death penalty in Bulgaria) for two brothers who beat a boy to death in Vratsa. The tragedy that cost the life of 18-year old Todor shocked the country into stunned outrage. The schoolboy lost his life because he had honked at two brothers who were jaywalking. After being beaten brutally in broad daylight in the centre of Vratsa, in full view of no less than a dozen bystanders, Todor died before the arrival of the ambulance.

The wave of indignation first gathered momentum in the social media – to begin with because of the brutality of the act itself, a little later because instead of interfering or calling for help, the eye witnesses had just stood there, some even taking pictures of the assault. “Now all gawkers who took pictures of the boy’s murder should be charged as accomplices. Because to witness a crime and to do nothing is in itself a crime!” Many comments such as this were posted on Facebook after the tragedy in Vratsa. But when the assailants were only charged of manslaughter as a result of minor bodily injury, public outrage spilled out into the streets. Hundreds of people came out into the streets of Vratsa and other towns across Bulgaria in memory of the 18-year old schoolboy but also to protest against the way the brutal murder was being handled by the authorities. It was only after the prosecutor general intervened that the decision was revised – the charge now is first-degree murder which entails a prison sentence of 15 to 20 years, life imprisonment or life imprisonment without parole. Nonetheless the indignation has not abated, because what the people in the streets are crying out for is justice.

Regrettably, this tragic event from last week is by far not the only time the law-enforcement system in Bulgaria has failed dismally. That is precisely the reason why rehashing the judicial reform has been a favourite pastime in this country. So much has been said about it, with no visible results, that people never want to hear another word about any reform in the judiciary, invariably formulated as the latest in the string of priorities of the latest government. We, journalists tend to fixate on all sorts of details – who appointed whom in some courthouse or other, who comes from which party and what leverage he or she has, what quotas there are at the Supreme Judicial Council. But all this does not matter in the least, seeing as public confidence in the law is long gone. We all seem to be naïve enough to believe that the times of lawlessness of the first years of transition are over and done with. The murder of the schoolboy in Vratsa showed us all that this is not so. Even the town’s mayor publicly admitted that there (as in many other places across the country) absolutely everything was in the hands of local mobster barons and the law was powerless. Men, short on intellect but long on brawn have taken over local businesses and have been running protection rackets undisturbed, frequently with the approval of the police. Reform in the judiciary? That is how things have been for many long years and we seem to have grown accustomed to this peculiarity of the never-ending transition.

An active and committed civil society would never keep its mouth shut. We can only hope that the latest protest vigils in Vratsa and in front of Palace of Justice building in Sofia will not be isolated and soon-to-be-forgotten episodes because there is more at stake here than the terrible death of an 18-year old boy. What’s at stake is justice itself because justice is something we haven’t had for years. So much so that we don’t even believe it is possible.

English version: Milena Daynova