Overview on 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 regulations, as well as the organization of judicial institutions. At the same time, the author comparatively analyzes several institutions of criminal law and criminal procedure in the Bulgarian and Romanian systems. The analyzed institutions refer to the judicial organization of the two countries, criminal prosecution, preliminary hearings, the regime of evidence, but also corruption and official crimes. For the comparative analysis of the two criminal justice systems were also considered 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 Verification and Control Mechanism. The paper also contains the author's point of view regarding some regulations from the two countries, with reference to the effectiveness of the rules necessary to combat the criminal phenomenon, especially corruption crimes. Last but not least, the paper addresses the matter of comparing legal institutions from different countries, with some arguments in favor of this difficult approach.