Three new Bulgarian candidates have been selected to compete for position of judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg. The three candidates were Roumen Nenkov, deputy-chairperson of the Supreme Court of Cassation (SCC), Pavlina Panova, judge at the Sofia Appellate Court (SAC) and Zdravka Kalidzjieva, human rights lawyer, mediapool.bg reported on November 21.

The three candidates would be proposed at the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council (PAEC), which would select one of them.
The selection was expected to be announced by late February 2008.

This was the second procedure, which the Justice Ministry organised for the election of a Bulgarian judge for the Strasbourg court. But like the first procedure, the second didn't go by without a row. Two of the candidates who had been eliminated on the basis of documentation said the competition had been "tampered with".

Nineteen candidates showed interest in the position in Strasbourg. Four had been rejected because of work history related issues, and one did not pass the language test. Among the others, who failed to meet the requirement of a minimum of 12 years professional juridical experience, were United Democratic Forces (UDF) Member of Parliament and former Prime Minister Filip Dimitrov and the adviser for the Parliamentary human rights committee Galina Samaras.

The two accused the jury and the Justice Ministry of manipulating the results, and said their candidatures had been rejected despite documentation they had handed in, which proved their professional experience. Samaras said she would file a complaint with the Council of Ministers and PAEC. UDF made a statement in Parliament against the rejection of Dimitrov and said the decision by the Justice Ministry had been politically motivated.

Two months earlier, PAEC had rejected all Bulgarian candidates after complaints were filed by NGO's. The motivation given was that the Bulgarian candidates had shown "insufficient knowledge of foreign languages and a lack juridical preparedness". Justice Minister Miglena Tacheva commented with the word "shame on Bulgaria".