Desislava Petrova, deputy head of the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office, says prosecutors' performance reviews should be fairer, promotion contests faster, and transfers used only as a last resort. She presented her plan at a hearing for candidates for the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) seats reserved for prosecutors.
The SJC must serve the public and the judiciary, Petrova said. Staffing policy in the prosecution service comes first in her plan.
She said reviews should show the real quality of a prosecutor's work, the actual workload and the conditions they work in. Box-ticking checks and identical grades for everyone do not work. Petrova wants the review criteria studied and changed, and workloads measured more fully with automated tools.
Contests for promotion and transfer should be held every year in each appeal region, she said, while contests for junior magistrates should stay central. She believes an interview is a faster and better way to pick staff from within than an exam. Internal contests should take priority over outside ones. The EU law test at first appointment should not carry so much weight.
Seconding a prosecutor to another office should stay a temporary fix for staff shortages, she said, with clear rules and safeguards against abuse. If a prosecutor objects, the reasons for the secondment must be set out in detail. It should end once the office has regular staff. Petrova also wants a fair way to count the results of prosecutors who have already been seconded.
When choosing managers, she wants candidates judged on their professional and moral qualities, with views from rank-and-file prosecutors and investigators. The process must rule out pressure and revenge against magistrates, she said, and the number of deputy heads should be backed by up-to-date analysis. Senior posts should not be career perks used to get around contests.
Her years in the prosecution service, the hardships she has overcome and the many tasks she has handled at once have convinced her she can endure, the candidate said. The job costs magistrates and their families a lot, she added.
"Nothing was easy and nothing was handed to me," Petrova said.
"I kept my faith in honest success, because my own professional path is its embodiment."