Bulgaria: Protest to be held against acting Prosecutor-General remaining in office

A protest is to be held in Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia on July 22 against acting Prosecutor-General Borislav Sarafov remaining in office, on the grounds that this is against the law, while organisers of the protest consider that Magnitsky Act-sanctioned Delyan Peevski controls Sarafov.

The protest is being organised by the Justice for All civic initiative, with the title “Out with Sarafov, Peevski’s cudgel”.

As The Sofia Globe reported at the time, the prosecutors college of the Supreme Judicial Council appointed Sarafov as acting Prosecutor-General on June 16 2023, after the dismissal of Ivan Geshev as Prosecutor-General.

At the time, there already was controversy about the appointment, with the Union of Judges in Bulgaria calling the decision “shameful”, and then-Justice Minister Atanas Slavov describing it as “unacceptable” and moving to have it overturned.

At the beginning of 2025, the National Assembly approved amendments to the Judiciary Act, placing term limits on acting holders of some top judiciary posts, including that of Prosecutor-General.

Sarafov’s term acting in the post expires on July 21, but the Supreme Judicial Council prosecutors college decided to keep him in place, arguing that Parliament did not explicitly give retroactive effect to the text and therefore there is no reason to elect one of his deputies as head prosecutor.

Justice for All, announcing the July 22 protest – which is to begin at 7pm at the Palace of Justice and proceed to the old Parliament building and Orlov Most (Eagle Bridge) – said: “the great Peevski cudgel, called Borislav Sarafov, cannot stay in his post for another day, because the law prohibits him from doing so”.

“A totalitarian government is visibly establishing itself in the country, masked behind a sham government and an impotent parliament, in which Delyan Peevski leads the majority. After completely taking control of the prosecutor’s office and the Supreme Judicial Council, ‘The Boy’ is trying to do the same with the court,” Justice for All said.

“The foundations of democracy are under threat, and justice is trampled and cornered. Without an independent and transparent justice system, there is no state,” it said.

In contrast to the situation with Sarafov, Georgi Cholakov is going on two months leave from his post as acting head of the Supreme Administrative Court, pending the election of a new head. Until then, the court will be headed by its deputy presidents, Marinika Cherneva and Lyubomir Gaidov.

Krum Zarkov, a former caretaker Justice Minister and former legal adviser to President Roumen Radev, told bTV on July 21: “We are on the eve of another absurdity that the Bulgarian institutional system must experience, namely, after a series of inactions, starting tomorrow we will find ourselves in a situation in which there will be no acting Prosecutor-General and President of the Supreme Administrative Court – at least not if they comply with the laws”.

On July 16, Zarkov told Bulgarian National Radio: “ After July 21, neither Borislav Sarafov nor Georgi Cholakov have the right by law to continue performing their functions. If they do so, it will be in violation of the law and it will be their responsibility, not the SJC’s”.

“These positions are not elected by the Supreme Judicial Council, but are appointed by the President. The very construction of an acting position is largely problematic because it circumvents this presidential authority,” Zarkov said.

Sarafov has taken the issue of the termination of the procedure that would have seen him elected as Prosecutor-General to the Constitutional Court.

A month ago, the Constitutional Court agreed to consider the case.

It involves other amendments to the Judiciary Act approved by Parliament in January, which provide that a Supreme Judicial Council whose term has expired – as is the case with the current council – may not elect a Prosecutor-General and the heads of the two supreme courts.

The amendments stipulate that unfinished procedures were terminated. Thus, Sarafov did not appear for a hearing in the procedure, because the changes had already been adopted, and days later they came into force and the procedure was terminated.

However, he challenged the termination in the Supreme Administrative Court, which in turn referred the matter to the Constitutional Court with the argument that the legal provision terminating the procedure violates the constitution because it is an interference by the National Assembly in the scope of the constitutionally regulated powers of the Supreme Judicial Council. This is also the opinion of the Supreme Judicial Council.

While Sarafov has been in office, a number of prosecutions have been initiated against figures from the opposition coalition We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria, notably including former prime minister Kiril Petkov, for abuse of office in the March 2022 unlawful arrest of GERB-UDF leader Boiko Borissov.

In Bulgaria, protests for reform have been further fuelled recently by high-profile actions by state institutions against WCC-DB figures such as Varna mayor Blagomir Kotsev.