Suchergebnisse

The ECtHR judgment in the case of the disciplinary proceedings against Bulgarian judge Miroslava Todorova attracted much attention. On the surface, it appears that the judgement is a mere example of the 'Justice delayed is justice denied' legal maxim – after all, the application was submitted in 2013 and the Court ruled against Bulgaria only in 2021. However, a closer look reveals that the ECtHR found in favor of Bulgaria on the two most worrisome questions – compatibility of the disciplinary proceedings against Todorova with Article 6 (fair trial) and Article 8 (right to private life) of the ECHR. This leads to the sad conclusion that unless a judge picks up a public fight with the government, she cannot defend herself before the ECtHR against bogus disciplinary proceedings. While judge Todorova tried to highlight some systemic issues of Bulgaria's justice system in her application, the ECtHR treated her case as an exception intimately tied to her role as president of a professional organization, and thus may have limited access to relief for other judges in similar circumstances.

In early June 2021, Bulgaria's Prosecutor's Office raided the Ministry of Interior and raised charges against a senior employee. According to the Minister of Interior Boyko Rashkov, the goal of the Prosecutor's Office is to sabotage an inquiry into illegal wiretapping. The senior employee who was charged indeed participated in the inquiry. A similar raid against the Bulgarian Presidency in July 2020 during which two of the President's advisors were arrested sparked mass protests demanding the resignation of both Borissov's government and General Prosecutor Ivan Geshev which lasted for months. Bulgaria's Prosecutor's Office is a Kafkaesque institution rather than a mere threat against the rule of law. Its crushing yet unrestrained authority is used as a weapon against the opponents of the status quo and a laundry detergent for corrupt politicians.

On 11 May 2021, Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev issued a decree appointing a caretaker government, which means that the dissolution of the 45th National Assembly is imminent. This National Assembly, which was first convened on 15 April 2021, was rather short-lived, but it paved the way to fairer elections and much needed reforms in the justice system which civil society demands. If the next National Assembly, which will be elected in July 2021, takes the meaningful Bills which were proposed in the 45th Parliament on board, the slow process of dismantling the autocracy built by Boyko Borissov will start. Unsurprisingly, the defenders of the status quo are trying to resist these necessary changes, going as far as misleading the institutions of the EU and the Council of Europe

Since 2007 the Swiss franc had been getting stronger, but it was a decision by the Swiss National Bank to unpeg the Swiss franc from the Euro in 2015, which resulted in its significant appreciation and shocked FX markets. Many citizens in Central and Eastern Europe were directly affected because they had taken out mortgages denominated in Swiss francs or linked to Swiss francs. In these countries, foreign currencymortgages are common because the interest rates on foreign denominated loans are lower, foreign currencies are more stable than the local currency, some citizens earn their income abroad, etc. This article analyses the impact of the Swiss franc surge on mortgages denominated in or linked to Swiss francs fromthe perspective of contract law, consumer law and financial regulation. Then, it examines the strengths and weaknesses of the responses to the Swiss franc controversy of three jurisdictions – Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia, which addressed the issue in distinct ways despite their relative legal cultural similarities. The purpose of the comparison is to consider what lessons may be learned from the Swiss franc surge and how they may inform the recent Directive 2014/17/EU on mortgage credit.