Chief Prosecutor Boris Velchev has spoken out against the persisting striving in Bulgarian lawmakers to criminalize "everything which Bulgarian society finds unpleasant".

During the presentation of the fourth issue of the Legal Barometer survey on Wednesday, he suggested introducing constitutional restrictions to curb the attempts at over-criminalization in Bulgarian criminal law.

"The only conclusion I can make is that it is very difficult to evaluate a penal policy where no penal policy exists," the Chief Prosecutor remarked.

He insisted that Bulgaria's penal policy was one of the most consistently underestimated issues by all Bulgarian governments.

The previous government had addressed the issue at the end of its term in office, Velchev added, while the current government had adopted a concept paper in the sphere which exceeded its term in office.

Velchev argued that Bulgarians tended to see penal law as some sort of cure-all.

"The job of a prosecutor is very modern in Bulgaria. Half the nation believes being a prosecutor belongs to their daily duties," he noted, warning that if the instinct to over-criminalize and to penalize all wrong-doing with prison terms was given free reign, Bulgaria was hardly likely to  boast a sensible penal policy.

The Chief Prosecutor illustrated his point with the proposal for the criminalization of selling food products past their sell-by date.

"There is something deeply wrong about the instinct to send everything that is happening in Bulgaria to the prosecution," Velchecv said, reminding about the case with the "dog-spinning ritual" (trichane) which Bulgarians insisted had to be tackled by the prosecuting authority.

In his Wednesday statement, the Chief Prosecutor backed the newly proposed amendment to the Penal Code barring the option of plea bargain for road killers.

He attributed his support for the step to "the fact that Bulgarian society is marked by deep mistrust of the instrument of plea bargain in such cases".

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