Risks in the Aggressive Criminal Justice Policy
23.02.2010Yonko Grozev
Dnevnik Daily, February 23, 2010
The Bulgarian Government has taken an aggressive criminal justice policy course. Yet, it has no vision of the judicial reform. It proposes amendments to the Penal Code that would make sense only in the presence of an independent and competent court. Police operations are broadcast on TV to show the strong governor's fist. But suspects are detained on the basis of minimum, and probably insufficient evidence. This puts the efficiency of the whole operations at risk. Under the current circumstances of steady merger of organized crime and state institutions an aggressive policy seems justified. However, instead of standing behind its actions, the government is trying to pass responsibility to the courts. This is a contradiction. It opens avenues for the critics and questions the consistency of the current actions of the executive.
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