During its Human Rights meeting of 29 September – 1 October the Committee of Ministers examined the execution of the Velikova group of cases, which concern mainly deaths and ill-treatment by law-enforcement officers and the lack of an effective investigation into these events. The Committee recalled that the authorities have adopted several important reforms and have achieved results as regards the decrease of ill-treatment by penitentiary staff, but considered that overall, the progress was not sufficient and therefore adopted an Interim Resolution.
In particular, it appeared that persons detained by the police still ran a considerable risk of ill-treatment, certain safeguards against ill-treatment were not sufficiently efficient in practice and the authorities’ policy aimed at combatting ill-treatment was partly frustrated by inadequate data-gathering and limited external monitoring by the Ombudsman or expert NGOs. There was also no real progress with the adoption of important legislative or other measures needed to secure effective investigations.
The Committee therefore invited the authorities, inter alia, to strengthen the free legal assistance and to ensure that a lawyer is available in good time to assist every person in police detention who requests it, to introduce systematic video recording of the interrogations of suspects and to improve the quality and confidentiality of medical examinations and recording of injuries. The authorities were also urged to establish a national system for compiling statistics on ill-treatment, as recommended by the CPT, to provide precise information on the disciplinary and criminal penalties imposed in relation to ill-treatment and to support a more intensive monitoring by the Ombudsman or by expert NGOs.
Furthermore, the authorities were urged to introduce, if necessary through a flexible interpretation of the Constitution or a constitutional reform, judicial review of refusals to open investigations and to entrust preliminary inquiries and investigations into alleged ill-treatment to prosecutors and investigating magistrates who do not have a working relationship with the investigated law enforcement agents.
Lastly the Committee insisted on the swift introduction in the criminal code of torture, as a self-standing offense, accompanied with adequate, dissuasive penalties and encouraged the authorities to consider the need to criminalise the extortion of a confession from suspects, not formally charged with a criminal offence.
The Committee decided to resume consideration of this group of cases at its HR meeting in December 2021 at the latest.
Latest notes and decisions of the Committee of Ministers concerning these cases. Non official translation into Bulgarian.
