The Government appears to be making some progress in response to the European Commission’s recommendations – and Bulgaria’s realities – in coming up with new versions of the Penal Code and Penal Procedure Code.

If current drafts are approved, the country will have heavier penalties for murder and kidnapping, and a new armoury of measures against property acquired through questionable means, as well as a way to prevent the obstruction of justice taking its course.

It is not that there have been no laws on these issues before; the problem has been that either they have provided for penalties that are too mild, or have not been put into practice at all.

Proposed changes to the Penal Procedure Code that are of especial interest include the idea of providing "reserve lawyers" for accused who string out trials by having their legal counsel conveniently fall ill around each court date. It is to be hoped that this part of the proposal is drafted soundly and faces neither the pitfall of being open to challenge because of removing the right of free choice of counsel, nor of being obstructed in turn by accused who decline to co-operate with their state-provided reserve lawyers.

The much-widened provision for confiscation of illegal assets is to be welcomed, and hopefully will be implemented effectively in a way that its predecessor legislation on confiscation of assets acquired through crime was not. Effective use of such provisions would serve as a long-overdue illustration of the principle that crime should not pay, and that those who live in luxury through dishonesty will have that luxury unceremoniously snatched from them.