Caretaker Justice Minister on Sarafov’s resignation: Legality is being restored in Prosecutor’s Office

Legality is being restored in the Prosecutor’s Office, Bulgaria’s caretaker Justice Minister Andrei Yankulov said on April 22 after Borislav Sarafov stepped down from the post of acting Prosecutor-General.

Since taking office, Yankulov has attempted to get Sarafov out of the post, citing the law and court decisions that Sarafov has been occupying the post illegally.

The Supreme Judicial Council’s Prosecutorial College accepted Sarafov’s resignation from the post – though he remains Deputy Prosecutor-General and head of the National Investigation Service – and invited his deputy Vanya Stefanova to take up the role.

Yankulov said that he assumed that the college would choose another acting Prosecutor-General, since it was the authority competent to do so.

“From the first day as minister, the central issue for me has been the restoration of legality in the management of the Prosecutor’s Office, which was violated by Sarafov’s continued stay in office,” Yankulov told reporters.

“In addition, I put the topic at the centre of the public debate. People from the inside also did it – for the first time,” he said.

All these circumstances led to this – at least to have a legitimate interim Prosecutorp-General for six months, who will enjoy all the powers that Sarafov was deprived of, since the law said so,” Yankulov said.

Yankulov did not want to comment on whether the results of the April 19 early parliamentary elections influenced Sarafov’s decision.

Ex-president Roumen Radev’s party won decisive victory in Bulgaria’s April 19 early parliamentary elections, with one of Radev’s campaign promises having been to reform the judiciary, including through the ouster of Sarafov.

Democratic Bulgaria co-leader Ivailo Mirchev said on April 22: “The heart of the Peevski-Borissov model has been taken out and this is an achievement of the protests”.

“There are already 160 votes to destroy the model. The next steps are important for Bulgaria to change,” Mirchev said, referring to the combined number of seats expected to be held in the new National Assembly by Radev’s group and We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria.

Democratic Bulgaria co-leader Bozhidar Bozhanov said: “Sarafov’s resignation is only the first step, an election of the Supreme Judicial Council is coming under new rules and people should be much more prepared so as not to elect the next Sarafov or Geshev”.

Boiko Borissov’s GERB party said that Sarafov’s resignation was a worthy, but overdue, personal act.

” For GERB, institutions have always come first. Now the most important thing is for the new National Assembly to start work immediately, so that we can elect a new Supreme Judicial Council with broad consent, which will guarantee a professional and transparent election of a new Prosecutor-General,” GERB said.

President Iliyana Yotova said that the resignation of the acting Prosecutor-General Borislav Sarafov is a necessary, but only a first, step.

The responsibility from now on lies with the National Assembly, where the issue of the expired mandate of the Supreme Judicial Council should be resolved with maximum consensus and a new sufficiently authoritative composition should be elected that would guarantee the transparency of all procedures, and this is the job and responsibility of politicians, Yotova said.

“We, the Bulgarian citizens, want justice that guarantees fairness,” she said.

Yotova expressed her personal opinion that Sarafov should have resigned from office a long time ago.

“He should have done so, since there are not enough arguments for this stay, with these endless discussions about whether it is legal or not. When it comes to legality, it was better for him to resign and unblock this process,” she said.

Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning leader Delyan Peevski – in whose interests participants in the street protests alleged Sarafov had acted – said: “The change of the acting Prosecutor-General is a process of implementing the constitutional and legal norms in the independent judiciary and in particular in the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Bulgaria,”

Peevski claims that “the MRF has always stated its conviction that democracy is stable and secure when the constitution and laws of the country and the separation of powers are respected as a guarantor of democracy, independence and mutual control of institutions.”

(Photo of Yankulov: Justice Ministry)