Parliament Decides to Ask Prosecutor General to Report Its Work for January-August

Parliament Thursday decided to demand of the Prosecutor General to prepare and submit to the legislature a report on the work of the prosecution service in January-August 2020. The decision was proposed by the opposition Socialist party and it went through on 179-1 votes with no abstentions.

The decision for the report comes after 14 days of large-scale protests in Sofia and other cities in Bulgaria against corruption. The protestors have been persistently demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister, the entire government and Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev. They say that Geshev has overstepped his powers and adopted a pick-and-choose approach in which some suspected offences are loudly prosecuted while alerts of flagrant violations are disregarded.

The Socialists have backed the calls for Geshev's resignation.

MP Kroum Zarkov (Socialist) said in the plenary chamber on Thursday that multiple actions by the prosecution service in the recent months have caused an outcry. "We have seen things that are without precedent, [investigative] information being made public, demonstration arrests and statements which violate the Code of Criminal Procedure."

He argued that these have caused tensions in society to soar and were among the things that triggered the ongoing mass protests for democracy. "People have the sense that the actions of the prosecution service go beyond the rules of procedure and Parliament cannot turn a blind eye," he said.

MP Krassimir Tsipov (the ruling GERB party) said that his group will support the motion and finds that it is important to see this report.

Source: Sofia