Новини

29.10.2012

The PDJS expresses concern about the ongoing confrontation between representatives of the executive branch and the judiciary that took the form of a public dispute between the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior and the Chair of the Union of Judges in Bulgaria.

29.01.2012

To address the continuing problems in the governance and career policy in the judicial branch the project Transparent Judicial Appointments Initiative (TJAI) launched a web-portal devoted to the appointments in the courts and the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC). TJAI’s main purpose is to help in making merit, objectivity and accountability the leading principles in promoting Bulgarian judges and prosecutors and the formation of the leadership in the justice sector institutions as well as the improvement of the career procedures through increased transparency and civic participation.

18.01.2012

It is important that senior appointments satisfy the highest standards of transparency and objectivity in order to inspire public confidence into the Bulgarian judiciary. This is the message of Ms Catherine Day, Secretary General of the European Commission in her letter to the Bulgarian Institute for Legal Initiatives (BILI).

16.01.2012

We, the judges must be more active and initiative in the process of drafting the legal frame for our work because many of our problems derive from the poor and vague legal framework. This is the opinion of Judge Ekaterina Nikolova, Chair of the Blagoevgrad Regional Court, expressed in an interview for the PDJS website. In her opinion, greater initiative from the judges is needed in cases of detecting contradictory case law from different courts on similar types of cases. Resolving the same litigations in different ways has a very negative effect on the public confidence in the courts work and the system as a whole.

10.01.2012

Mechanism ensuring adequate payment should definitely be considered, as the lack of it is one of the reasons for the unwillingness amongst many professionals to participate as expert witnesses. This is the opinion expressed by Silvina Sobadzhieva in an interview for the PDJS website. The overall policy for selection of experts should also be reviewed to ensure inclusion of highly qualified experts in the expert witnesses lists. Another issue for consideration is providing options for continuous enhancing the professional qualification of the experts, especially in relation to areas in which the development of science is rather dynamic, she said.

30.12.2011

A comparative study on Effective defence in criminal proceedings in Europe based on evaluation of the access to effective defence in criminal proceeding in nine Council of Europe member states is the topic of an article by Ms Velislava Delcheva, Chair of the PDJS Managing Board and an expert at the Open Society Sofia Institute. The article is published at Legal World magazine, issue 10/2011 (only in bg).

19.12.2011

Program for the Development of the Judicial System (PDJS) is one of the eight non-governmental organizations which with a special declaration insisted "citizen participation and transparency to be seen as standards for democratic legitimacy of the ongoing appointments" in the judiciary system.

18.12.2011

A meeting that took place on the 16-17 December of a newly formed working group marked the beginning of the implementation of phase two of the “Improving the work with the expert witnesses – means of reducing the case delay” Project. The initiative and the leading role belong to Veliko Tarnovo Administrative Court.

2.12.2011

21 new courts will receive from PDJS the SpeechLab software that helps clients with visual impairments to get acquainted with court documents. The software converts text files into speech so that blind people or people with low vision, elderly and people with low literacy could ‘listen to’ judgements and records from court hearings on a computer in the reading room.

21.11.2011

The need to expand the grounds on which the Supreme Judicial Council (the SJC) elected members mandate could be terminated was the main recommendation made by Velislava Delcheva, Chair of PDJS Managing Board during the Round Table discussion on the SJC and the Judicial System Bodies Constitutional Model, held by The Jurists Associations on November 21st in Sofia.