Dear Editor,
If my diary is right the Marguini trial returns to Court on 3rd October. We expect, for all our experience of the criminal justice system points in that direction, another round of doubletalk, gibberish and resignation to failure by the Prosecution and, finally postponement of every decision until 2008.
I really do not see what Boris Velchev is for. His job is not to be a spokesperson for a failed regime or to gloss over every gaping hole in the criminal justice system: his job is to prosecute criminals and send them to prison. This he has conspicuously failed to do.
The criminal justice system as a means dispensing justice to the real criminals is, on any measure, a total failure. If Bulgarians deserve a chance of justice, they deserve it today and every day... and not just the promise of it tomorrow or the day after that, or some time in the next century.
Every big case, every cause celebre which we read about is stillborn. Whilst the press are willing to go along with the charade that each leading case becomes, everyone concerned in the process knows from the outset that each one will at some stage fall flat on its face. They fall over one after the other, entirely predictably, like dominoes.
I can understand why Bulgarians get fed up of hearing about corruption but it is key to understanding why Boris Velchev cannot point to a single success. The position he inherited was impossible. In the city and regional prosecutors' offices there are individuals who have never prosecuted a single case honestly in their entire careers: they became prosecutors only to take bribes from professional criminals and not in any remote sense out of public duty. It is true that some prosecutors (more than 20) have been put under investigation or have been suspended, disciplined or charged with criminal offences but the whole purge has done nothing to stir the log-jam of pending cases. 'Pending' because prosecutors can sit on cases without doing anything at all for 5 or 10 years. In many instances they will always be 'pending': there will never be a hearing, no witness will ever be called to give his evidence in open court. Boris Velchev's initiative to tackle the problem of corruption in these offices has only scratched the surface of it.
While Europe waits for Bulgaria to deal with organised crime those of us who see the cosy relationship between it and the politicians, know that the reforms in the criminal justice system are just window dressing. It is no surprise to us that the government and the courts bend over backwards to stretch the civil rights of criminals to inter-galactic levels while at the same time giving no weight at all to the civil rights of victims and their witnesses. What of the 850,000 unprosecuted cases which the government admits to? Assuming that each criminal is allowed more than one victim ( shall we say, for example, three) that is 2.6 million victims who have not seen their tormenters tried, much less punished; or in the case of the multifarious thefts from public funds, the whole population, 7.5 million victims. And what does Bulgaria do for these victims? Shamelessly, it just abandons them to become victims again.
Victims and witnesses are routinely betrayed to criminals by prosecutors for a few pieces of silver.
Bulgaria, institutionally, allows professional criminals to interfere with evidence and to intimidate or even murder witnesses. Prosecutors now do house calls to collect the bribes, which since the purge, they are wary about taking in their own places of business. Worse, it allows those who steal millions from public funds to keep their ill-gotten gains in all cases.
So what has been achieved? The top-ranking criminals are hardly running for shelter as far as anyone can tell. On the contrary, the murders and the massive frauds are as brazen as ever and there appears not the slightest prospect that any of the perpetrators will receive the multiple life sentences they richly deserve.
There is no sign yet that Bulgaria's criminal justice system is changing for the better, it remains a wasteland. Sure there are cosmetic changes to appeal to the public relations-minded commentators in Sofia and Brussels, but core values and performance remain primitive. " Primitive" is hardly the right word for it, half of Africa has a more-advanced criminal justice system than Bulgaria.
It is Boris Velchev who sits at the top of this pile of dung. He cannot blame the Courts or the police. Most of the serious cases are stopped (or more likely not even started) in the prosecutors' offices. Decisions are made behind closed doors by people who are answerable to him, even if they indeed behave as if they are not answerable to anyone.
But fear not Boris, perhaps a small change in title and job description will do the trick! Instead of being Chief Prosecutor you can be Chief Criminal Liaison Officer. It will not change your day-to-day duties in any way at all. Like other bigshots you can have regular meetings with criminal oligarchs to take advice and instructions. Of course they will expect that cases against criminals useful to them will be stopped before they ever get to Court. No problem there... that already happens in every organised crime case. I am sure you can guarantee from the outset that every indictment will be flawed, and that any significant or particularly damning piece of evidence will be compromised and/or ruled inadmissible. No need to prepare any case for trial or summon witnesses because we know in advance that there will be no trial... technicalities and procedural issues, yes, but a trial , no! Difficult cases ( remember the Marguini) can be postponed indefinitely! Prosecutors can share the pay-off with the judges. There will be no rule of law, just organised crime operating in a state moulded in its own image. In other words everything will be exactly as it is now!
Signed,
A.B. Angelova
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