Bulgaria: Access to Justice

Background

The Bulgarian Access to Justice project has its origins in a forum on access to justice in Sofia in 2001 where the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee presented a study on “Access to Counsel in Criminal Justice Practice in Bulgaria.” On the basis of a review of close to 2,000 criminal case files, and interviews with various criminal justice actors, the study identified serious violations of international standards and constitutional guarantees in the ordinary criminal process in Bulgaria. Among other findings, the study reported that close to one-third of defendants who eventually received prison terms were not represented by legal counsel at any stage.

In Bulgaria, legal aid services are distributed among different institutions enjoying little co-ordination and co-operation. Government funding is insufficient and non-transparent—there is no separate budget line for legal aid. Hence it is impossible to know precisely how much money is spent each year. In the appointment of ex officio counsel to criminal cases, certain functions are given to the bar; others remain with the prosecuting authorities. The procedure lacks detail and contains no guarantees against corrupt practices. Mechanisms do not exist to assess the qualification and expertise of lawyers entering the legal aid system. There is no means to monitor service quality and there is little incentive for lawyers to specialize. Ultimately, the system lacks a dedicated state body with overall responsibility for managing it.

In mid-2002 a working group was formed to address these problems through reform of the legal aid system, composed of a lawyer and a judge—both with criminal expertise—a criminal law professor, a member of the Ministry of Justice and representatives of the Open Society Fund (OSF)—Sofia. By late 2002, the working group had designed the “Access to Justice” project. The project is modeled after and builds upon the experience of the Justice Initiative’s Lithuanian project on Access to Justice for Indigent Criminal Defendants.

Objectives

The project has several short-term objectives:

• To pilot a public defender model of legal aid provision in criminal cases, in the Bulgarian judicial district of Veliko Turnovo, as an alternative to the present system of ex officio-assigned counsel;
• To establish criteria for measuring the quality and cost-efficiency of criminal legal aid services;
• To propose mechanisms for assessing the material status of defendants and accused persons; and
• To give young lawyers an opportunity to develop skills in criminal defense advocacy.

A longer-term objective is to encourage reform of the legal aid system as a whole, with a view to improving its financing and administration through the creation of a legal aid management board.

Activities

An Advisory Council has been formed for the project, consisting of a Vice-Minister of Justice, the Vice-President of the Supreme Bar Council, a criminal law professor, two criminal court judges, an experienced criminal practitioner, and two representatives of OSF—Sofia. The Advisory Council determines the strategic direction of the project and has supervisory oversight over the main aspects of implementation.

In mid-May 2003, a “Legal Aid Bureau” was created in the pilot region of Veliko Turnovo, headed by a Bureau Manager—an experienced lawyer with criminal law expertise and project administration skills. Five young lawyers have been chosen to provide full-time legal aid services in criminal cases within the Veliko Turnovo court district. The Bureau Manager will contract outside lawyers should there be conflicts of interest or case overload. The work of these external lawyers will also be monitored for the purposes of the project. The staff lawyers’ qualifications in criminal law will be augmented through specially designed training modules.

Also in May, OSF–Sofia organized a presentation of the project to a range of actors in the Veliko Turnovo criminal justice system. Co-operation agreements are being prepared to ensure that mandatory defense appointments go to Bureau lawyers. A taskforce of judges, prosecutors, investigators, police officers and the Bureau Manager will develop rules of interaction between the Bureau and each institution within the criminal justice system.

For two months in 2003, a supervisory assistant federal public defender from U.S. joined the Bureau, courtesy of the International Senior Lawyers Project, to assist with management techniques and in designing training modules for lawyers in motion-drafting, legal writing, and investigation.

Partners

• OSF-Sofia
• Bulgarian Ministry of Justice
• Supreme Bar Council
• Veliko Turnovo Bar College
• Members of the Veliko Turnovo judiciary and police

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