Yet in his first week as a Prosecutor General, Sotir Tsatsarov established what Boris Veltchev was talking about for years – that state controlling authorities are not used effectively, but rather all signals for offences are sent directly to the Prosecution office. Comment in this sense made Sotir Tsatsarov on his way to his first Supreme Judicial Council session as a Prosecutor General. Asked whether he acquainted himself with the Minister of Agriculture’s signal concerning the substitutes of the forest fund land tracts, submitted to the Prosecution office the day before yesterday.
Asked whether it’s an abuse of the office on behalf of politicians and ministers, Mr. Tsatsarov replied: “That’s what I am trying to say. No one could prevent the file piling. Not only on the part of ministers and politicians, but even of citizens, who turn to the prosecution office first in many cases of problems. It is not about turning those signals around. However, let anyone do their job in the scope of their normal authorities. Particular actions need be demonstrated, in a particular direction, rather than having the prosecution office conduct overall examinations which last for years”.
Mr. Tsatsarov made it further clear that he is aware of his predecessor’s objections against turning the prosecution office into a “full-scale controlling body”: “The tendency of piling up the prosecution office with all sorts of signals has been detected long before I became Prosecutor General and will go on after me for sure. The prosecution office is viewed as a full-scale controlling body in this country. First, because it is a prosecution office, second, because it is most convenient that everything be transferred thereto so that it could examine it. Let’s work so that, whenever we examine something, we do it right and we have what to say, not just drown in massive volumes of work.”
Mr. Miroslav Naidenov’s signal contains data concerning 98 substitutes of forest fund land tracts since 2003 up to this date. “Some of the deals, under the then-acting provisions of the legislature, were within the district governors’ powers and I wouldn’t be surprised if I receive another signal thereon, because the Ministry of Agriculture didn’t put them in the current one. That will increase the scope of the examination, but we have to concentrate on particular issues, because an overall examination is of no use to the state, and it is strenuous even to e large team of prosecutors and the society hardly expects that”, those words of the Prosecutor General sounded even like a very clear, but delicately expressed hint.