Huge scandal broke out on the last weekly Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) session. The reason was the planned check of the random case assignment systems and practice in the Supreme Administrative Court.
On March 18, 2013 a special committee led by the chairperson of the Prevention and Disclosure of Conflict of Interest Committee with the SJC (Ms. Nezabravka Stoeva) visited the Supreme Administrative court to observe the way cases are assigned among judges and to see if this is done in accordance to the principle of random assignment. Representatives of two Bulgarian NGOs and an independent IT expert were present. The results of the check are not announced yet. However, the President of the Supreme Administrative Court and a member of the SJC Mr. Georgi Kolev confronted Ms. Vazelova about some aspects of the check. Among them were a request for additional information, the lack of official results, the way the NGOs were selected to participate, the lack of authority of the Prevention and Disclosure of Conflict of Interest Committee to conduct such checks, etc.
In response Ms. Vazelova explained that the check was planned for in the Annual Program of the SJC and the decision to conduct it was made by the SJC.
Two more checks were planned to take place – one in the Supreme Court of Cassation which was already done on March, 29, and one in the Sofia City Court which was scheduled for April, 8. As a result of the situation the SJC made a new decision according to which future checks of the random case assignment in courts will be conducted by the Professional Qualification, IT and statistics Committee.
More on the topic in www.legalworld.bg (in Bulgarian)