Bulgaria's Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), which in recent years has been embroiled in a number of scandals bringing into question its credibility, has decided to give 5300 leva each in bonuses to all of its 25 members, Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily said on December 17 2009.

The 25 SJC members will get the money for the "SJC's overall contribution to Bulgaria's judiciary in 2009," Dnevnik said.

The original idea was that only three of SJC members would get the bonus. However, when it came to voting, the SJC decided to give all its members bonuses.

The reason given was that otherwise, rewarding just some SJC members would be "a form of discrimination".

The SJC has been criticised frequently by Bulgarian public officials and NGOs for serious flaws in its work supervising the country's judiciary.

The series of scandals, the biggest of which was the so-called "brokerage scandal" regarding the SJC's appointment policy, also added to Bulgarians taking a dim view of the body.

The decision comes at a time when Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov is calling for all public bodies to cut costs, given the negative impact of the economic crisis.

Prime Minister Boiko Borissov has said that this year, employees of Government ministries will not get their traditional Christmas bonuses.

Separately, Borissov decided to give just half of Bulgaria's pensioners 25 leva Christmas bonuses, instead of last year's 50 leva paid to all pensioners. The 25 leva bonuses will go only to the most impoverished pensioners, Borissov said.

On December 16 2009, Parliament decided that MPs and Cabinet Ministers would not get Christmas bonuses.