Judicial control over the use of special intelligence methods (SIMs) in police investigations was practically inexistent, Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev was quoted as saying by mediapool.bg on May 21 2008.

Accompanied by Interior Minister Mihail Mikov, Velchev confronted reporters on his way to the weekly meeting of Supreme Judicial Council.

“There is a an abuse of SIMs because the law allows it,” Velchev said and noted that “what we have seen is that SIMs have been used by the police even in road accident investigations.”

According to Mikov the number of people in the judiciary who can authorise the use of SIMs should be limited. Currently, police can ask for permission for the use of SIMs from the chairpersons of the 28 regional courts.

Mikov said that such a permission shoulb be granted only by the six chairmen of appellate courts, which would limit the number of people involved in the process.

Furthermore, Mikov said that SIMs should be used as the last possible resort in an investigation. “It should be used once we have used all other means”.

Referring to Velchev's statement that SIMs have been used in all kinds of investigations, Mikov repeated one of his previous ideas. “We should have a strict budget on the use of SIMs. That way police officers would know that the use of SIMs is an expensive thing and their use not be abused.”
 
The subject of the proper use of SIMs has been on of the urgent tasks on Mikov's agenda from the day he was appointed as a minister on April 22 2008. He replaced Roumen Petkov, who in his last days as a minister admitted that just 10 per cent of the evidences gathered with the help of SIMs had been accepted by the courts.

It prompted Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev to say on May 11 that “we need to put to an to the paranoia that everybody in this country has been put under surveillance.” On May 19, he made the stunning statement on private broadcaster bTV that he had all kinds of politicians asking him whether they could speak frankly while visiting his office.