Bulgaria’s Supreme Judicial Council has been resorting to creative procedural tricks to avoid examining two requests by two Ministers of Justice for the dismissal of controversial General Prosecutor Ivan Geshev for actions and omissions in office undermining the prestige of the judiciary. Earlier this month, I wrote an article for the Verfassungsblog discussing why the Supreme Judicial Council is among the main reasons why a sitting General Prosecutor of Bulgaria can abuse his office or commit other crimes with impunity. Essentially, this body is one of the main threats to the rule of law in Bulgaria. You can read my article “Impunity: The Unbearable Difficulty of Dismissing a General Prosecutor for Abuses of Office and Other Crimes” here.

The question of Ivan Geshev’s dismissal became even more pertinent in light of the refusal of the Prosecutor’s Office to raise charges against former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, who was arrested earlier in March, despite evidence gathered by Bulgaria’s Ministry of Interior. Last week, I spoke to the Finnish political magazine Suomen Kuvalehti about the corruption of Bulgaria’s Prosecutor’s Office and why it transpires that the current Chief European Prosecutor Laura Kövesi is helping to expose it. You can read their detailed article with some quotes from me here. Bulgaria’s rule of law decay is not just visible from Finland – German media critical of Angela Merkel’s CDU are also concerned about Borissov’s corruption which is being shielded by Ivan Geshev. You can read the coverage of Borissov’s arrest and its implications by Jungle World with some quotes by me here.