A Task Force with the Ministry of Justice to draft
the Law on Amendments to the Law on the Judiciary was set up in the
beginning of last September. Representatives of the executive,
legislative and Judiciary, as well as NGOs including the Center for
the Study of Democracy were involved in its activities.
Substantial consensus on the need to amend the Law
on the Judiciary has been achieved in the process of developing the
Program for Judicial
Reform in Bulgaria within the framework of the Judicial Reform
Initiative. The main priorities of the further judicial
reform development were identified in the Program. It was endorsed
at a Policy Forum
on May 18, 2000. The major part of these priorities was included in
the Ministry of Justice' Concept Paper on the amendments needed to
the Law on the Judiciary as a basis for furthering the judicial
reform.
The amendments' scope and major directions
include:
- A more accurate selection of candidates and
introducing contests as a major principle when appointing
magistrates (especially newly appointed ones).
- Improving the existing regulatory framework of
the one-year internship of the court candidates.
- Regulating and specifying the status of court
administration.
- Setting up with the Ministry of Justice a
specialized unit (Court Police) to provide security and assistance
to the judicial system's separate units.
- Specifying the obligations for the various units
of the Judiciary to accurately maintain court statistics and
Uniform information system to combat criminality.
- Improving mechanisms and procedures to
ascertain/find out disciplinary violation cases and instituting
disciplinary liability of all magistrates.
- Assessment of the possibility to establish
Specialized prisons.
The Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Judiciary
(Available only in Bulgarian) and its Explanatory Notes (available
only in Bulgarian) were finalized by the end of October 2000 and
were discussed on a public hearing on November 17, 2000. The public
hearing was organized by the Center for the Study of Democracy
jointly with the Ministry of Justice and the Legal Interaction
Alliance and took place in the Union of Jurists in Bulgaria.
See full records of the discussion
(Available only in Bulgarian)
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