STRATEGY OF THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE ON DEVELOPMENT
2007 - 2009
The implementation of a
successful judicial reform makes it necessary to adopt a strategy on the
development of the Public Prosecutor’s office of the
It is necessary to carry
out purposeful, methodical actions for reforming, modernizing and upgrading the
effectiveness of prosecution authorities during the first years of
Main Principles
According to the
constitution the Prosecutor’s Office looks after the exact abidance by the Law.
It protects the public interest, person’s rights, brings and maintains before
the Tribunal the accusation in penal cases of common character. Prosecutors are
independent in their activity on internal and external interference and are
subordinated to the law and the professional ethics rules. In this framework as
well the system of the main principles on which the present strategy lies is
delineated:
·
Protection
of the lawful order;
·
Protection
of person’s rights and liberties:
·
Effectiveness
and specialization;
·
Cooperation
and mutual control between institutions;
·
·
Transparency,
accountability, publicity.
Strategy takes into
consideration as well those financial and legislation measures which can not be
carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office itself but play an important role
in implementing its activity.
Purposes and Priorities
The strategy object is
to delineate priorities and problematic areas in the Public Prosecutor’s Office
activity and to indicate the trends, and the mechanisms of their overcoming.
The reform in the Public Prosecutor’s Office is aimed at the following priority
directions.
·
Prosecutor’s
functions and interaction with other authorities;
·
Effective
control over prosecutor’s work;
·
Qualification,
selection, training;
·
Professional
liberties and guarantees;
·
Responsibility
and transparency;
·
Finances
and material provision.
Strategy is aimed at
creating conditions for upgrading the effectiveness of the public prosecutor’s
office work. It is necessary for public prosecutors to mobilize their efforts
in the work on heavy offences. By raising their professionalism they will
guarantee the achievement of the most truthful criteria for a good result –
condemnation sentences while observing person’s rights and the professional
ethics rules. It is necessary to boost prosecutors’ motivation to ensure that
they are stimulated for a proactive approach in their work and can continuously
increase their professional qualification. Prosecutors’ protection, the provision
of reasonable working conditions, the strengthening of some social
acquirements, the adoption of clear and stable criteria for professional promotion would create the
preconditions for the figures of the supervising and the investigating
prosecutor to acquire new, modern contents.
The strategy has one
more important goal. It should provide the opportunity of a public control over
the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The pointing to the measures to be accomplished
by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, would enable Bulgarian society to look after
the reforms progress and carry out an effective control over the leadership of
the institution in case of a unjustified delay. At
the same time strategy takes into consideration that Prosecutor’s Office
reforming can not be work just for prosecutors and this process must be
actively supported the Bulgarian Parliament, Bulgarian Government and the
Supreme Judicial Council.
The Public Prosecutor’s
Office, as it appears to be now, is not enough
effective and flexible. In spite of the great number of prosecutors the system
is overloaded and is not able to guarantee the implementation of its priorities
in the work, it works in the conditions of a public trust deficit. The
Bulgarian prosecutor has not a high public prestige. Suspicions of mass
corruption are not overcome. Professionalism is not always up to standards.
Reactive and bureaucratic approach can be seen. Ambition is not stimulated in
the prosecutors’ career so as to be taken into account as well the results of
cases with a high public significance. It can be watched some reservedness as
to taking up cases in which the public and the media show a keen interest.
There exists passivity, conciliatoriness with flaw in the
work of other investigating authorities. Awareness that
responsibility for the success of the prejudicial proceedings is basically a
prosecutor’s burden comes slowly to one’s senses. Administrative leaders
continue to exhibit low exactingness, and do not apply effectively either
sanctions or encouraging mechanisms with respect to prosecutors being led by
them. The priorities of the informational technologies are not used
sufficiently. Capacities of professional qualification both in
At the same time the
modernization of the Public Prosecutor’s Office is possible with the efforts of
all prosecutors and the high responsibility of the administrative leaders at
all prosecutors’ units. Premises of such a conclusion are the professionalism
and the moral characteristics for the enormous part of the Bulgarian
prosecutors. The leadership of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the
The modernization of the
Public Prosecutor’s Office should be carried out under the continuous public
supervision and control. The Public Prosecutor’s Office activity needs openness
and transparency to extent allowed by Law.
The leadership of the
Public Prosecutor’s Office is persuaded that the measures to be taken in order
to accomplish the strategy goals will enable the Public Prosecutor’s Office, at
the end of the period indicated, to change and acquire a higher public
prestige.
It is necessary to adopt
strategy concerning the penal policy of the State. As an element of this
strategy may be the adoption of a new Penal Code intended to make difference
between offences and misdemeanors. In this way the strictly formal Code of
Penal Procedure will be kept for the virtual offences while for investigating
and punishing can be adopted a new, more simplified as to contents law. Hence
the Public Prosecutor’s Office will be able to focus all its potential on the
heavy offences having greater social significance.
Main Activities
1. Prosecutor’s Functions and Interactions with other Authorities and
Organizations
Prosecutor’s functions
are clearly regulated in the Constitution, the Judicial System Act, the Code of
Penal Procedure, the Code of Administrative Procedure, the Punishment
Execution, Act, the Administrative Offenses and Punishments Act.
Not later than 2007 the
Public Prosecutor’s Office should have at its disposal an instruction on the
interaction between the authorities of the prejudicial proceedings and must
have developed its own instruction on the document turnover.
The perfect cooperation
on all levels with the Ministry of the Interior will continue, to make a stand against crime.
In the activity of the
Public Prosecutor’s Office, it is of particular importance the cooperation with
the Ministry of Justice for legislation initiatives as well as with the
Inspectorate in view of its control functions.
To raise prosecutor’s
skills it is necessary a close cooperation with the National Institute of
Justice. In this connection the Public Prosecutor’s Office should conduct
negotiations to conclude a long term agreement for the implementation of syllabuses.
The cooperation, on
expert level, with the National Assembly, will continue in the Parliament
commissions preparing legislation initiatives and decisions.
It is expedient and of
interest of the institution to activate the Public Prosecutor’s Office in
search of support and partnership with organizations of civil society. They
have at their disposal highly qualified expert resources for observations,
studies, analyses and assessment being of importance to the Public Prosecutor’s
Office.
As a prospective measure
for strengthening the Judicial System the Public Prosecutor’s Office will seek
contacts with associations of jurists in order to form the feeling of a
magistrate’s community.
2. Creation of Working Conditions without Internal and External
Interference
It is necessary to
reject categorically the attempts of administrative leaders in the system to
exert pressure on the professional assessment of prosecutors in their work on
specific files and cases. Prosecutors should take their decisions freely, from
internal conviction and on the basis of collected evidence. Those obligatory
for execution are only the written orders of the higher ranking prosecutor in the framework of the instance
control. It is expedient to work out clear mechanisms
and rules provided with relevant guarantees so that in case of unlawful effect
the control authorities in the Public Prosecutor’s Office in due course should
take measures. The professional liberty however is
completely compatible with the control of the
administrative leader to observe lawful terms, to undertake procedural actions with the view to ensuring a rapid,
effective, fair penal process, to abide by the labor discipline. The
professional liberty is completely compatible as well with control in substance
with regard to lawful and well-founded prosecutor’s
decisions. What is more, it is compatible also with the public control over
prosecutor’s motivation. On significant to the public and being of interest for
the media cases, prosecutors should be able to explain the reasons for their
decisions.
3. Effective Control over Public Prosecutor’s Office Activity
The control at the
Public Prosecutor’s Office should be implemented by administrative leaders, by
prosecutors of the higher rank Public Prosecutor’s Offices, and by
inspectorates. The control is aimed at ensuring the exact observance of law,
non-admittance of unjustified delay in the work on files and cases, thwarting
the premises of corruption practices. Administrative leaders bear the
responsibility for the work organization at Public Prosecutor’s Offices headed
by them, for abiding by the labor discipline, and they exert a continuous
control over deadlines, quality, and
effectiveness in the work of subordinated to them prosecutors.
In order to reform the
Public Prosecutor’s Offices it is necessary as early as in 2007, in the framework
of appellate public prosecutor’s offices to set apart control units (inspectorates), intended to develop plans
for a continuous control over the work of both the rank-and-file public
prosecutors, and the administrative leaders. The inspectorate to the Supreme
Public Prosecutor’s Office of Cassation, provided with staff and professional
standards ought to render them assistance should necessity arise. Inspectorates
must check carefully the signals of irregularities and violations in the work
of distinct prosecutors, as anonymous signals not containing
concrete facts shall not be verified.
The control will be
connected with a relevant application of disciplinary and encouraging measures.
The results from the control activity of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the
disciplinary and encouraging measures endertaken will be summarized
periodically and stated on the Internet site of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
4. Public Prosecutor’s Office Reorganization. Cutting down Bureaucracy
and Relieving the Work of Prosecutors.
Prosecutors’ activity
should be optimized so that prosecutors could
be released from unusual administrative and
technical activities and unneeded voluminous reports.
To this effect, it is
necessary to reexamine all memoranda, orders and instructions,
which create obligations to prosecutors. To make sense, the special accounts on the prejudicial proceeding at the
Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office of Cassation and Appellate Public
Prosecutor’s Offices are to be reduced to minimum. It is expedient to introduce
rapidly the necessary informational technologies to ensure that the Public
Prosecutor’s Office look independently after cases circulation without loading
public prosecutors with writing materials, which sidetracks them away from their
basic professional activity and does not give
positive results.
The control activity of
The Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office of Cassation will be implemented by
taking a small number of cases and files into a special account according to
clear carefully deliberated criteria. Actions in this direction must solve the
problem as early as in 2007.
The introduction of the
casual principal for the distribution of cases and files should be combined
with a requirement for prosecutors’ specialization in their work on different
types of files and cases. In this way the effect of anticorruption prevention
combined with a possibility of prosecutors’ profiling will be achieved. For the purpose, the Supreme Public
Prosecutor’s Office of Cassation is to prepare an instruction.
An important trend in
the Public Prosecutor’s Office work is the activation of the prosecutor’s
supervision, for the purpose of lawfulness, of different state control
authorities with a view to using more adequately their control powers in the
relevant professional areas. It is necessary to affirm the role of the Public
Prosecutor’s Office as a coordinator and corrective of the control institutions
aiming at the protection of lawfulness and citizens’ rights. The official
commitment in this respect is assigned to the Supreme Administrative Public
Prosecutor’s Office. It must develop its own guidelines of supervision on the
activity of the control authorities in the
5. Ethical Standards in the Prosecutors’ Behavior. Professional
liberties and guarantees.
The prosecutors must
observe inside and outside the Office such a conduct which meets public demands
with regard to their official position. It is inadmissible that prosecutors
should maintain unregulated contact with persons having criminal record.
Prosecutors’ behavior should be deprived of ostentation. The demonstration of high material standards, though
achieved with lawful means of the prosecutor and his family, is undesirable
because it foments suspicions of corruption. Prosecutors whose partners or closely related with them persons exercise lawyers’ profession are to undertake
particularly careful measures to ensure that conflicts of interests are
excluded.
Prosecutors’ practice of
stating their property both at the National Audit Office and at the Supreme
Judicial Council and giving their consent to be published their statements will
continue. In this respect the Public Prosecutor’s Office shall develop an
up-to-day software product.
The two professional
prosecutors’ associations will continue playing role in training and observing
the ethical standards while the exigencies for that with regard to the
administrative leaders of the relevant public
prosecutor’s offices are to be raised.
The professional
associations of the prosecutors in
6. Qualification, Selection, Training
The cooperation with
National Institute of Justice must underlie the continuous raising of prosecutors’
professional preparation. The development and funding of joint programs with
the institute and other structures and organizations of national and
international character must provide with training on subjects from the penal,
civil and administrative legislation in force. Special emphasis is to be put on
the prosecutors’ training on questions related to the law of the European Union
and the practice of the Courts in
The Public Prosecutor’s
Office leadership will take steps to discuss with the leadership of the
National Institute of Justice a project of agreement on long term cooperation for training prosecutors at a request and for
remote sensing training.
The Public Prosecutor’s
Office leadership should make a review of all the European programs and
projects under which Bulgarian prosecutors can be sent for training abroad. For
the purpose it is necessary to analyze possibilities and prospects, including
with the efforts of the Bulgarian representative at Eurojust.
In 2007 computer
training programs for prosecutors will be prepared and there will be transition
to a mode of work in which all the materials at the Public Prosecutor’s Office
will be made ready and transmitted through the net. It is necessary to work out
syllabuses concerning the qualification of prosecutors in cooperation with the
National Institute of Justice in several directions:
·
Professional
ethics and anticorruption;
·
Rights
of the witness and the victim in the framework of the penal process;
·
Modern
and effective management;
·
Periodical
training events on a regional level on problems identified at the respective
appellate region and related to the current work of the Public Prosecutor’s
Office.
Personnel and
Qualification Sector to the Administrative Department and International
Projects sector to the International Legal Department of the Supreme Public
Prosecutor’s Office of Cassation should systematize the training courses for
prosecutors according to subjects, programs and projects. The Public
Prosecutor’s Office will continue to make a good use of the solid professional
experience of respected by the colleagues prosecutors as temporary lecturers in
view of implementing the training events at the National Institute of Justice
as well as at the forums both on a national and international scale.
At the end of the three
years period the public prosecutors at the Appellate Public Prosecutor’s
Offices must have completed trainings on the indicated priority subjects and
the needs of new training programs for forthcoming qualification events should
have been analyzed.
To guarantee stability
and effectiveness in carrying out training events with a view to raising the
skills of prosecutors the leadership of the Public Prosecutor’s Office must
perform periodical studies concerning the needs and wishes of training and will
cooperate with different non government organizations having relation to the
activity of the Public Prosecutor’s Office for the purpose of raising of the
professional capacity of counteracting organized crime and
corruption.
7. Provision of Stable and Foreseeable Career Growth in Profession
It is necessary to
develop specific internal rules and criteria for evaluating and attesting the
prosecutors to be discussed at the Collegiums of the Public Prosecutor’s
Office. The assessment of prosecutors according to these rules must underlie the long term policy of the
Public Prosecutor’s Office with regards to encouragements and sanctions. In
view of the specific prosecutor’s activity it is expedient to work out clear
rules and criteria for assessment, which must be in line both with the common ones for all the magistrates, and the
specific ones related to prosecutor’s activity by making as well a proposal to
change the attestation regulation before the Supreme Judicial Council.
Automatic proposal for
promotion locally in rang and salary due only to the time served must be
dropped if it is not accompanied with an evaluation of the respective prosecutor’s
work. The evaluation should be of decisive importance while fixing the concrete
amount of each magistrate’s basic salary.
The principle of
competition with respect to appointing prosecutors is to be introduced as well
in the appointment of administrative leaders. In some cases for the candidates
for leaders, a public defense of conceptions
concerning the development of the respective Public
Prosecutor’s Office may be organized.
8. Creation of Professional Judicial Administration in Support of Prosecutors
It is necessary to
modernize and optimize the existing model of the prosecutor’s administration
organization. The introduction of the new informational technologies supposes
cutting the number of the employees committed with technical activities at the
expense of those with juridical, economic and informational technologies
education to be in support of the prosecutors.
To optimize the work of
the administration, the computerization of all activities is going to be
implemented. That makes necessary to raise continuously the skills of the
employees to adopt the standards to serve citizens and to improve the control
over abiding by ethical rules.
The activity of the
National Association of Employees from the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the
Republic of Bulgaria is to be activated by directing the efforts to train the
employees for a rapid and correct performance of the official obligations,
observance of the ethical standards, affirmation of clear rules for the
relevant positions and the responsibilities whereof. The leading Body of the
association in cooperation with the prosecutors’ corresponding persons on
appellate level should propose a plan for action which till the end of 2009 is
to report results concerning the strengthening of the administrative capacity
the Bulgarian Public Prosecutor’s Office.
9. Responsibility, Accountability and Transparency in the Public
Prosecutor’s Office
activity. Non-admission of Acts of Internal Corruption
The measures provided in
the Constitution and laws for public control over the activity of the Public
Prosecutor’s Office are insufficient. The annual statements before the Supreme
Judicial Council and the National Assembly, as well as the activity of the
inspectorate created with the fourth amendment of the Constitution are steps in
the right direction but they do not give full guarantees for public control
over the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The contemporary
informational society puts before every responsible institution the question on
the cooperation with the Media. The specificity of prosecutor’s work defines
the bilateral interest of such cooperation. The affirmation of suitable media
strategy as a part of the communication strategy of the Public Prosecutor’s
Office, in partnership with other authorities and organizations will contribute
to multiplying citizens’ support for the institution and raising the public
trust in its activity. In this direction it will be particularly useful to
affirm rules on joint with the Ministry of the Interior media initiatives related
to our daily efforts to counter and punish
crime.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office has at its disposal
a well structured set of speakers – operative prosecutors. They have to take a
course of training in the framework of international projects in view of the
necessity to build up adequate communication skills.
The General Public
Prosecutor’s speaker is to affirm himself as a person intended for contacts
with the media on a national scale. He must inform and comment on principle and
strategic questions of importance to society, the institution, and being of
media interest. Prosecutors should not avoid contacts with the media. If
necessary, they have to make commentaries on cases supervised by them so that
the public should receive rapid and adequate information with the guarantee
that it will not harm the investigation and the investigative secret.
The Public Prosecutor’s
Office internet site is to be up-dated by turning into the most significant
official source of information about the Office. Besides it would be useful to
create an official forum in the site of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in view
of exchanging ideas, putting questions on concrete, very specific, and
connected exclusively with prosecutor’s work, cases and problems. It is
necessary as well to discuss the question of providing with resources a project
for building informational centers at the Public Prosecutor’s Office as a
mechanism to implement the idea of the institution leadership about an
effective, open and flexible Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The prevention and the
counteraction against internal corruption at the Public Prosecutor’s Office is
a priority which has been being implemented through different tools. The main
mechanism to react to the corruption in the
Public Prosecutor’s Office is the policy of publicity and openness. The positive changes that began in this respect will
continue irreversibly and consecutively in spite of difficulties and problems.
Means for counteracting
the corruption in the judicial system is the annual statement of property. In
this connection, it is necessary to introduce a practice ensuring that the
relevant inspectorates perform control “on a casual
principle” and according to concrete signals concerning the authenticity of the
submitted statements.
The casual principle for
distributing cases and files, skillfully combined with the professional
specialization of prosecutors has also a positive effect in preventing
corruption.
It is expedient to
develop and affirm criteria for a fair admission to the profession and career
growth. The national contest for selection of junior prosecutors must
correspond not only to requirements regulated in the Regulation No. 2/2006 on
the competitions but also to the internal rules for the criteria on assessing
at the examination case combined with the demand that the case should be
published as well as the solution, accepted as true, of the former.
10. Social Policy
The leadership of the
Public Prosecutor’s Office, in response to people’s hard work in the system has
being doing its utmost to ensure worthy working conditions to the staff. Without commitment of the State this
problem can not be solved. The lack of service owned housing stock limits the
career development of the prosecutors from the country who would not be
motivated to participate in contests at the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office
of Cassation and the Supreme Administrative Public Prosecutor’s Office. In this
direction the Public Prosecutor’s Office will insistently put a demand to be
provided with a service owned housing stock.
The policy of assisting
prosecutors and employees should necessity arise with means from the fund of Serving social, domestic and cultural needs,
as well as of providing
high quality medical
and health service from specialized medical establishments on contracts
concluded by the Prosecutor’s Office is to continue. Efforts ensuring safety
working conditions and applying preventive measures to protect employees’
health should continue as well.
For the purpose of
accomplishment the main trends delineated in the present strategy concrete
plans will be developed. By the end of the month of May 2007 the plan for
concrete actions on the implementation of the current year strategy will be
published on the internet site. Such plans will be published annually and they
will indicate the measures to be taken to perform the strategy till the end of
its term.