High-profile Court Cases: Media Coverage

"Courts are not to blame for the delay in cases of high public interest." "The prosecution fails to bring well-sustained indictments in high-profile cases". Тhese are some of the headlines in the media following the presentation on Nov. 2nd of the report prepared by RiskMonitor “Оrganized Crime and Corruption: High-profile Court Cases”.

The media quotes Ralitsa Ilkova, chief project expert, who claimed that the prosecution often falters under public pressure to speed up the pre-trial investigation, which impacts on the quality of their work: “In the end, speed trumps quality”.

Trud daily newspaper underlines the need for reform to give prosecutors more leeway in their work, while increasing the individual prosecutors’ responsibility for the success or failure of each single case. Former EU Commissioner Meglena Kuneva andMr. Martijn Elgersma, Chargé d'affaires, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, also stated their support for reform of the judicial system.

All the media quote the main conclusions of the report concerning the reasons for the delays in court cases and instances of sending them back to the prosecution: poor quality of the indictments, gathering unnecessary and excessive amount of evidence, subpoenaing too many witnesses.

Many publications place emphasis on the statement of Stefan Popov, Executive Director of RiskMonitor, that in order for the court to be an even opponent in its disputes with the government, the court should have more access to the media.