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Background
The Judicial Reform Initiative (JRI) consolidates
the efforts of leading not-for-profit organizations,
representatives of government institutions and experts from foreign
and international organizations for developing a program for
assistance and successful implementation of the judicial reform in Bulgaria. The
Initiative was launched in early 1999. The main objective of the
Initiative - a Program for Judicial Reform (PJR) in Bulgaria, based
on a set of political and legislative measures - was successfully
achieved. As a result of the established public-private partnership
the main priorities of the PJR in Bulgaria have been incorporated
and further improved in the Strategy in order to Reform the
Judiciary in Bulgaria adopted by the Government in October 2001 and
many reform efforts for implementing the Strategy have been
launched. The UNDP has been involved in this process through the
Project Comprehensive Review of the Administrative Justice System
in Bulgaria aiming to facilitate the establishment of a modern and
effective system of administrative justice.
Objectives
Taking into consideration the experience accumulated
in the process of its implementation as well as the established
public-private partnership with the Ministry of Justice the CSD Law
Program as a Secretariat of JRI is going to initiate elaboration of
a Judicial Anti-corruption Program (JACP) based on the updated PJR.
The JACP will focus on the role of the Judiciary for preventing and
combating corruption. The main objective of the JACP will be to
identify the most important reform areas and to formulate a set of
recommendations and mechanisms for achieving legal stability and
confidence in the Judiciary.
Activities
The process of preparation of the Judicial
Anti-corruption Program will consist of the following steps:
1. Forming Task forces for the elaboration of
JACP
Task forces each focusing on main action lines of
the reform will be formed as follows:
Experts involved in PJR development, distinguished
lawyers, judges, civil society representatives will be invited as
members of the task forces. A coordinator who will provide
overall guidance and will coordinate the work of the Task forces
will be appointed.
2. Preparing draft JACP by task forces
experts
JACP will be designed as a background consensus
document that will follow the main action lines as described under
section 1. Special attention will be given on the constitutional
reform debate as well as on the ongoing reform process of
administrative law and administrative justice. In their work the
Task forces experts will rely on the expertize of the main
stakeholders as well as on the capacity of the UNDP in
anti-corruption and its recent involvement in the judicial reform
process in Bulgaria.
3. Policy Workshop
The initial version of the JACP will be presented
and discussed with experts, representatives of governmental and
non-governmental institutions, international organizations at a
Policy Workshop. The conclusions and recommendations made will be
summarized and incorporated in the final version of the JACP by the
Task forces and their coordinator.
4. Policy Forum
Preparing the final version of the JACP as a
document based on the consensus of organizations concerned
regarding actions that have to be undertaken for encouragement and
development of anti-corruption judicial reform. The JACP will be
presented at a Policy Forum, a highly representative event
of 100+ participants - members of the Parliament, the Executive,
and the Judiciary, the Supreme Judicial Council, legal experts,
representatives of the international organizations, civil society
and business community.
5. Publication
The Judicial Anti-corruption Program will be
published in Bulgarian and English in 1000 copies each.
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