Bulgaria’s Supreme Judicial Council investigates judge after complaints by companies, French ambassador
The ethics committee of Bulgaria’s Supreme Judicial Council has begun an investigation into whether Sofia City Court Judge Roumyana Chenalova violated the magistrates’ code in dealing with a bankruptcy case involving French company Belvedere Distribution.
The investigation follows complaints by two companies, including Belvedere Distribution, a letter from French ambassador in Sofia Xavier Lapeyre de Cabanes, and a request from Chenalova herself for the matter to be investigated.
Bulgarian National Radio reported the head of the ethics committee, Yassen Todorov, as saying that the hearing may be held in public.
Chenalova said that she thought the French ambassador was “misguided” and that the circumstances surrounding the bankruptcy cases of the two Bulgarian subsidiaries of Belvedere had not been related accurately.
She said that she had documents that would prove this to the Supreme Judicial Council’s ethics committee.
In an interview with local television station bTV on December 5, the French ambassador detailed the Belvedere case and said that it showed that there were “rotten apples” in the judicial system.
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(Photo: Jason Morrison/sxc.hu)
