In the eve of the first sessions of the new Supreme judicial council's members a round table was organized today in the American corner in Sofia on the subject of "Accountable and transparent judicial appointments and evaluation of the judiciary". It was initiated and conducted by BILI together with the Embassy of the USA and was scheduled as part of Mrs. Jane Howell's visit to Bulgaria. She is an executive director of the Colorado office of the Commission on judicial performance evaluation and an expert in the process of evaluation and appraisal of judges.
The Colorado Commission is responsible for evaluating all judges being initially appointed in the judiciary and decides on their retention after 2-years service. As part of her lecture Mrs. Howell clarified that its metodology includes among all statistics on workload, interview with the judge held under closed doors, courtroom monitoring and surveys from attorney and non-attorney interlocutors. The whole information is kept confidential and is summarized in a final report containing motivated recommendation on the judge's retention in the judiciary. It is also communicated to the respective judge and complemented with his/her comments.
Another reason for the Round table was given by the successful passage of more than one year since the beginning of BILI's project on Transparent judicial appointments, for more information on the initiative go to the specialized website of the project on www.judicialprofiles.bg/
A video of the whole event will be available soon