The criminal justice system in Bulgaria – Comparative law. A Bird’s Eye View –

Abstract

This paper contains a description of the criminal justice system in Bulgaria, starting with the history of modern criminal regulations, current provisions, as well as the organization of judicial institutions. At the same time, the author comparatively analyses several institutions of criminal and criminal procedure law in the Bulgarian and Romanian systems.

The analysed institutions refer to the judicial organization in the two countries, criminal prosecution, preliminary hearings, the evidence system, but also corruption and office offences.

For the comparative analysis of the two criminal justice systems, we also considered the findings of the Venice Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, but also those of the European Commission within the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism.

The paper also contains the author's point of view regarding some legal provisions of the two countries, with reference to the effectiveness of the rules necessary to combat the criminal phenomenon, especially in relation to corruption offences.

Last but not least, the paper addresses the matter of comparing legal institutions from different countries, with some arguments in favour of this difficult approach.