On September 28, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) held a “Courts and Communities Together” exhibition as part of its Judicial Strengthening Initiative.

At the event, held at the Military Club in Sofia, 13 Bulgarian regional and district courts and 24 NGOs presented their achievements for the past 19 months. For the first time in Bulgaria, the public was able to see the result of such close co-operation between the courts and the public sector.

The event was hosted by Michael Fritz, head of USAID’s mission in Bulgaria and was opened by Judge Ken Stewart, director of Judicial Strengthening Initiative (JSI).

Guests watched short films about the work of USAID’s model courts, as well as demonstrations of the activities of the various NGOs working in the area of the rule of law. The main focus of the exhibition was aimed at presenting the NGOs who had won funding from USAID for their projects and initiatives and the work of the courts who work in compliance with JSI.   

In the area of regional and district courts, USAID registered a success in its efforts to improve public access to the courts’ work.

As a result of the model courts and partner courts programmes, several regional and district courts now have detailed websites. These include the Varna Regional and District Courts (www.vcourts.org; www.vrs.bg), Sevlievo Regional Court (www.sevlievo.court-bg.org), Veliko Turnovo District Court (www.vt.court-bg.org), Vratsa District court (www.vratza.court-bg.org), and Chepelare Regional Court (www.chepelare.court-bg.org), among others.

Other results included the setting up of information centres, the system of parallel audio record of court sessions, an automatic system for management of court cases, cases registration and clerks’ work, set up on the principle of one-stop services, as well as the extremely important principle to assist the transparency of the courts, the random allocation of lawsuits principle, and decreasing delays in cases. 

In the area of accountability of courts’ work, the system for monitoring the way cases progress in the different stages of the court process is really something new for Bulgaria and is a definite success for both USAID and Bulgaria’s judiciary. This system is accessible to all parties in the court process, the prosecutors and defence, and all other citizens who take an interest in the case. The system makes it possible to see when a case has entered the court, who is the judge in charge, the prosecutor and the lawyers. Furthermore, the system shows when a case is scheduled to be reviewed by the relevant court authority.   
          
On September 29, Fritz and Stewart gathered in Sofia the chairpersons and deputy chairpersons of the model courts and partner courts participating in the Judicial Strengthening Initiative. At the meeting, three Bulgarian courts were awarded the status of model courts: the Kurdjali District Court, Veliko Turnovo District Court and Vratsa District Court.

“The JSI has been a success so far,” Fritz told journalists. He said that key factor in the implementation of the project was the co-operation between USAID and the Supreme Judicial Council. However, Fritz said, this did not mean that Bulgaria’s judiciary was now fully reformed.

“In general, a lot of work remains to be done,” he said.

On behalf of the judiciary, Vratsa District Court chairperson Tatyana Alexandrova said that the system that enabled monitoring of the progress of cases was one of the biggest achievements of the project.

“This allows us, as people in charge of the courts’ activities, to see where and why a case has been delayed, and to seek responsibility from the respective judge,” Alexandrova said.

Daniel Minov, chairperson of the Veliko Turnovo District Court, said that the Court Improvement Plan (CIP) designed by USAID and approved and implemented by Supreme Judicial Council, was another significant result of the project.

“CIP is important because for the first time today we have common standards that apply to all activities of the courts. This is extremely important because we have not had such standards before in our work as chairpersons of district and regional courts, and this was a great obstacle,” Minov said.

In terms of transparency, Minov noted that every six months a revision of the cases was being done, which enabled statistical monitoring of the progress of cases. As a result of this, delays in cases had dropped substantially, Minov said.

Alexandrova said that before the summer recess this year, all the judges in her court were ordered to submit reports to her on how their cases had been progressing.

“I just told them that even if only one judge did not deliver, they would not go on summer leave, and that way the work was done in time,” Alexandrova said with smile.       

The NGOs also showed good results at the USAID’s September 28 exhibition.

They have been working on various projects financed by USAID since the beginning of 2005, which had included monitoring of court cases and media coverage aimed at improving public’s awareness of what is going on inside the court buildings. Other activities of the NGOs included recreating court cases with the participation of high school students, publishing of monitoring reports on the activities of different courts, manuals for journalists, reports and recommendations aimed at improving the judiciary and many others.

Standing out among these reports is the civic monitoring report on the implementation of the programme for implementation of the Strategy for Fighting Corruption in the Judiciary, published by the Institute for Development of the Public Environment. Other projects include the book “Raising the Effectiveness of the Civil Process - the Standpoint of Business”, published by the Bulgarian Industrial Association; the Dike Association with their “Manual for Jury Members”; Gender Education, Research and Technologies Foundation and its two books “Prevention of Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking in Children” and a comparative review of gender discrimination legislation in force. There was considerable interest in a book by Transparency International Bulgaria (TIB), “Court Experts in Bulgaria”.

TIB’s Alexander Neofitov told The Sofia Echo that USAID’s initiative was beyond doubt a success.

“I sincerely hope that the speed gained will be maintained even when USAID ends its mission in Bulgaria in 2008,” Neofitov said.

He said that the question of court experts was a problem that remained to be resolved.

“At present there is no procedure in the law for a court expert to be challenged, which means that the judge has no alternative but to accept an expert’s report on the case whether he likes it or not. This is something that needs to be changed by law,” he said.