Author Archives: Valentin Braykov

Below are some twilight factors which have contributed to the current status of Bulgarian law enforcement within the last 20 years.

1. The top magistrates of Bulgarian law enforcement are the generation which was brought up, educated and started its career in communist times, almost all of them being communist party members.

2. It is worth recalling that Marxism-Leninism taught that law and court would gradually expire in the transition between high socialism and communism. Ideology saw law as a doomed profession. I.e. not the best youngsters were encouraged to take that track. Communism was to be a non-antagonistic society without sharp disputes.

3. There was a parallel system of internal communist party justice where solutions were enforced without resorting to courts. I.e. institutional justice was not crucial.

4. Montesquieu’s division of powers was totally rejected by Marxism-Leninism. Power was one and united and it all belonged to the communist party. Law enforcement was just one of the extensions/functions of the united party power. Law graduates were carefully examined on this issue. Today they understand it as judicial shareholding in united power.

5. An important element in the current self-confidence of the Bulgarian comrades is the conviction that they have not been defeated on their national ground, they have only been strategically betrayed. They consider themselves unfair victims of world events and by no means a turned page of history. Hence the vigor to stay in power.

6. Before 1990 Bulgaria had just one law faculty. In the mid 1990s they became 11 (eleven) pumping out low quality staff into the system which soon realized its corruption potential. They are still 11 faculties today. It is a locusts invasion.

7. When in 1991 the new Constitution was adopted, the Grand National assembly passed a handful of extremely important laws of constitutional relevance- Trade act, Foreign Investments, Protection of competition AND The new Law on the Bar. MPs were interested to join the bar after quitting parliament so they introduced a free registration regime by law graduates to become bar members. This “open doors policy” soon resulted into a “no walls policy”. The profession was turned into a dumping ground for failed politicians, former judges, prosecutors and policemеn- like a legal refugee camp. Only after 2004 meaningful entry exams were re-introduced but it will take a generation to clean the system.

8. The two instances of courts were replaced by a three instance court system BUT justice was regionalized into five appeal court areas. Then the third instance (supreme court) was made discretional which resulted in regional appeal courts having the final say. That soon deteriorated into regional appeal court specifics in implementing the law giving rise to the jargon: Tarnovo Law of Contract, Plovdiv Procedure, Sofia Penalty code, Varna Trade act etc. Supreme court has no physical and some times mental capacity to coordinate. Hence justice standards are critically fragmented.
The two new procedure codes (civil and criminal) adopted in 2006 and 2007 simply released top judiciary from 50 years of precedent decisions which loosed them free to introduce “novelties”.

9.The influx of new EU laws overwhelmed the system with regulations and directives that are hard to follow by magistrates, not to speak of the administration.
On the other hand crucial material laws of communist time still make the skeleton of legislation. The basic civil laws were drafted b/n 1948-1952 whereas the Penalty code is of 1968.

10. Unlike other countries with similar problems Bulgaria does not have a strong church to promote basic biblical values and virtues among the population as a substitute to institutional law enforcement and integrity. No major theological study in the Orthodox bookshop for many years.

THE REFORM OF BULGARIAN LAW ENFORCEMENT CAN HARDLY COME
FROM THE MAIN CONSUMERS OF ITS IMPERFECTIONS.

July 2013                                                                                                                         Valentin Braykov

  On May 6th each year the Bulgarian Orthodox church celebrates St George and the country celebrates the day of its armed forces whose patron is St George. Although the Bulgarian reverence to St George comes from early medieval times, this official holiday was decreed on January 9th 1880 by the first Bulgarian monarch after the 1878 Liberation from Turkey- Prince Alexander I Battenberg. A week earlier he decreed the Military Order of St George to decorate Bulgarian courage in war time.

     It is interesting to note that the cross on the Bulgarian order of St George is not the orthodox one but the Maltese cross which dates back to the 12th century and the Third Crusade. The lion figure on the Maltese cross of the Bulgarian order carries on its head the crown of Hessen and not the Bulgarian crown.

     This is to remind that Prince Alexander I Battenberg comes from the Hessen dynasty of Germany. That brings another recollection- one of Alexander’s brothers was married to the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria while his two other brothers were married to granddaughters of Queen Victoria. Hence his link to the British royal house and its traditions.

    The Maltese cross entered the Russian military tradition as the St George’s cross decoration for courage (“Георгиевский Крест“). Even the Russian Emperor Paul I was the Great Magister of the Maltese Order in 1798-1801. And Prince Alexander I Battenberg served in the Russian army throughout the Liberation war against the Turks 1877-1878. He was then decorated with the St George’s cross for courage.

     Having gone that far in the history journey one cannot help recalling that St George is the patron saint of England and of its army since the time of Richard the Lion Heart in the second half of 12th century- when the Maltese cross was first seen on the crusaders’ chest. The legend claims that in 1192 AD an apparition of St George appeared on the walls of Jerusalem waving his sword and encouraging the English army of Richard for a victorious assault on the Holy city. It was later called the Army of St George with its noble order and St George’s battle standard and a rallying battle cry: “God for England and for St George!”. After victory at Agincourt 1415 St George’s Day was made a double feast and ordered to be observed with the same dignity as Christmas Day.

     It is a fascinating coincidence that England and Bulgaria have a common patron saint of their armies and an eight-point Maltese cross on the St George’s order embodying the eight basic knightly Christian virtues: Loyalty, Piety, Generosity, Bravery, Glory and Honor, Contempt of death, Helpfulness to poor and sick and Respect for the Church.

     There are not too many common Christian symbols, saints and holidays to have survived the turbulence and divisions of history especially on the far ends of Europe- England and Bulgaria. Few Bulgarians are aware that the majestic statue of Richard the Lion Heart in front of the British Parliament in London has a Bulgarian echo in the uniting reverence to St George. Although with us it is May 6th and in the Anglican calendar it is April 23rd.

April 23rd – May 6th 2013                                                            compiled by Valentin Braykov

P.S. Is History fair? In front of the British parliament is the legendary adventurer Richard I who spent most of his life out of England, was not the best English speaker and was buried in his beloved France. While his brother King John who signed Magna Carta in 1215 (the Constitution of modern civilization) has no place at Westminster and is doomed by the legends as Robin Hood’s opponent.

 Bulgaria is no longer the Tomato republic on the Balkans – this is the basic message of the street riots to the ruling idiots who have lost any common sense and social gravity. They float like weightless astronauts in their fiction chamber.

     He who thinks that a 7% reduction of electricity price can extinguish the raging social fire should take a long leave for his personal psychiatric examination. It is as if a pissing young boy tries to stop forest flames. The hidden extra of the situation is that on both ends of the tunnel are ticking bombs and there is no exit without blowing at least one of them – either the monopolies will collapse by unpaid bills or the people will collapse by paying them. The survival of one party is the death of the other. Time does not heal these bills.

     No one dares to say that there are at lest three transactions with the energy before it reaches the consumer’s electrometer – as resales and services for its transport and access. Each of these transactions brings 20% VAT. Multiply this by three (at least) to understand what we pay. The law bans interest on interest but they levy tax on a tax. If the transaction for delivery of electricity was just one direct and not three its price will fall down by 50%. The problem is also with the VAT vampire.

     There is no democracy without market economy. Over a monopolies’ economy there can only be feudal power with democratic trinkets. Everything is a monopoly: petrol, natural gas, electricity, water, heating, telecom, media, the banking cartel etc. They even quietly nationalized the health care funds and the pension funds dropping them into the state budget pool. Does Brussels see this?

     They pulled over the people’s neck the old yoke, only new carters swing the whip. We are all their serfs. Like crocodiles they ambush their victims at the water place and tear them to pieces in an economic slaughter without precedent in Bulgarian history. They forced Bulgarians to consider their own state as the worst enemy. And that emigration is the only survival.

     Justice is an old and banal joke while police cares only for the security of the elite. Monopoly laws are like the 1935 Nuremberg nazi laws against the Jews. A 1943 “Final Solution” = “Die Endlosung” is being imposed on the Bulgarian consumers. Try to challenge a monopoly’s bill at court  – “a Crystal Night”.

     Karl Marx would have said that the social flames across Europe have thrown light on “the basic antagonistic contradiction of the new social order”. But all are watching the bushes and no one the forest including “the modern left with right pockets”.

     There is no way to push the pressed out toothpaste back into the tube.

     Three protestors put themselves and the country on fire.

     The fire in oil wells is put out by explosions. The Bulgarian social fire can avoid this recipe only if the rulers quickly come to their senses and recall that each Common Man is a Temple of the Holy Spirit.

March 2013                                                                                                             Valentin Braykov

   I know nothing of foreign policy and have sympathy for the government’s fight against terror on every continent. I want to ask them, however, to take down the binoculars and look if, right in their feet, a home-grown terrorist group is not doing mass energy slaughter on the defenseless Bulgarian population.

     How else to call the price Holocaust of the Bulgarian energy mafia? Nobody dares to say the simple truth that, in Europe, Bulgarians rank first in energy costs relative to income.

     Those in power in the last 20 years have been behaving like Roman elite who have been watching the tearing of helpless Christians by exotic beasts of the energy oligarchy. And the government participates in this spree along with the other vampires, but through the tax salami – with a knife, fork and a napkin.

     The people responded with spontaneous rebellious movement, which feels its strength. What was, according to Lenin, a revolutionary situation? When those at the top – no longer can and those at the bottom – no longer want.

     The problem is not in how the invoice is written but in the pocket of the beast and its accomplices. The explosion would not be avoided by reshuffling of puppets, pawns and media rattle. Simply, someone needs to save the herd from the teeth of the wolves’ pack – so does the good shepherd. Let him first smash the dogs that chew at the wolves’ table.

     Do you remember that last year they raised electricity prices at the request of the Thermal Power Plant because central heating was becoming uncompetitive. Isn’t this a blatant cartel? Where are the keepers of competition – are they chewing as well? And none of them has gone crazy.

    What happened to the labor feats of past generations whose voluntary and heroic labor built the Bulgarian energy sector? How did that feat transform into the teeth and claws of the energy beasts? You have no idea what heating bills are coming!

     Bulgaria has been put on an electric chair controlled by sadists.

     See what St. Apostle Paul advises the Corinthians (3-18):

     “Let no man deceive himself.
If any man thinketh that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise.”

February 2013                                                                                        Valentin Braykov

  “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in Paradise!”. This is the answer Christ gives to one of the two criminals hanging next to Him on a cross. That criminal has just confessed: ”We are punished justly for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this Man has done nothing wrong”.

     On this context Pope Benedict XVI writes in his book “Jesus of Nazareth”: “Peace is based on justice…Pilatus knew the truth and what justice required…but the specific truth of the case had to concede before the peace…Pilatus was going to learn later that peace cannot be made against the truth”.

     Justice is the daughter of conscience because conscience is the God speaking within each of us. It is that divine instinct that drives man to be in harmony with the Universe. That is why conscience speaks within us by one voice.

     He who passes a just law or a just act of court – he is writing the Ode of Joy in law. Law is beautiful when it is just. A country governed by law which lacks justice is a kind of organized crime and there the human soul casts verbal bullets.

      Abiding by just laws is the noblest participation in power.

     The greatest asset that we can leave to our children is a more just social order- this is the real and lasting tenderness that we can give them.

     For the sake of justice many people open their tongues but too few open their hearts. The road to justice is within us- when the sail of the soul catches the breath of the Spirit and thus sweeps into the divine space.

     Justice is like the water- it does not belong to the spring from where we get it because the spring is only its door. Like what comes out of the room does not belong to the door.

     Christmas 2012                                                                                           Valentin Braykov

Today it is 23 years since that memorable November 10th 1989 when we joyfully ran in the streets to spread the news of the dictator’s fall. Yet even now we do not know what exactly and why happened then and later on. I am not a fan of conspiracy theories because they cook the past but have no eyes for the future.

Still there is one very reliable trace for what did NOT happen.

Remember the English Revolution of the 17th century – its eve and aftermath are associated with the names of William Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, John Locke, Henry Purcell.

The French Revolution of the 18th century comes after the Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire and the Social Contract by Rousseau. Then Schiller writes The Robbers and The Ode of Joy for which he is proclaimed by Convent an Honorary citizen of France. Beethoven composes his Third Heroica and Ninth Joyful symphony. Napoleon completes the draft of Code Civil and David and Delacroix create their famous paintings.

The Russian Revolution of October 1917 was preceded by The Legend of Danko and The Thunderbird by Maxim Gorky. It was he who said the immortal words: “A Man- that sounds proud!”. Then followed Sholohov, Shostakovich, Essenin, Block, Ahmatova…

The common feature of these three revolutions is the spiritual volcano which erupted at their time to blow away most of the previous elite- like Vesuvius in August 79 AD crashed from 2700m to 1400m high just within three days. The volcano of arts is the eruption of justice and harmony at every major social quake. These are the fire sparks over the boiling crater, its legacy of light to history.

In Eastern Europe there was no such cultural volcano before and after 1989. So there was no revolution. They only painted it for us like a cartoon movie. That is why nobody celebrates the so called Democratic transition-except the Germans for whom it is only a national reunification. I.e. the eruption is still to come.

Unlike 1878, in 1989 we Bulgarians did not figure out who actually liberated us. This time the gracious liberator opted for anonymity and it explains why this freedom turned to be an ancient Greek gift. Anonymity spares the liability for the gift’s quality and its eventual return to sender. But this gave us the painful lesson that donation of freedom and donation of blood have much in common- both end fatally if incompatible with the recipient’s body. We also bitterly realized something more- that no nation deserves the liberty and justice which it is not ready to die for.

Since 1989 we have followed obediently The Banking Calf. Moses will hardly forgive us this. The next volcano may not be only a painted one.

November 10th 2012                                                                                       Valentin Braykov

For the ordinary Bulgarian the Cold War soon turned into a Cold Peace.

The poor and the middle class have no real political representation. A cartel elite is changing in power like a volleyball team rotating for the first ball on the pitch.

Living standards have fallen for the majority of families- heating, electricity, fuel, food, homes have hardly avoidable prices. People are treated like oriental women in a market harem of a few monopolies where the government is the eunuch.

Birth rate has fallen, pension age has increased, good health care is only for the rich.

Education standards have deteriorated- intelligent Bulgarian youth is flocking into western universities with one way tickets.

We have a 30 000 army and a 100 000 police force.

Freedom of speech is owned by a handful of groups possessing the whole media market.

The man on the street does not believe in law enforcement.

Banks are more important than human beings.

Religion is more a ceremony than a faith.

The critical point of the above will be reached when communism turns from a memory of the old into a dream of the young for more equality and social justice. Not much time is left.

Bulgaria is not the only country in this position.

The West may have won the Cold War but is it losing the Cold Peace?

The Cold Peace can be won only by making it a WARM Peace.

01.09.2012                                                                                                                Valentin Braykov

The commentary "Pakistani Food for Thought" has stayed at our site 
www.braykov.com since March 2007. I wrote it in envy to that distant and dignified people and in despair for our distance to their virtues. Today I repent for that despair-after the vulcano of solidarity with Judge Miroslava Todorova against her dismissal by the Supreme judicial council.

Art.629 s.6 of the Trade act orders that the procedure for starting bankruptcy must close within three months. The average age of such cases in Sofia city court is fifteen months I.e. five times beyond the statutory limit.

Has the Supreme judicial council sensured anybody?

In Supreme Cassation court there is a Red Squadron which cuts down the restitution of real estate with the sword "indirect control". How many millions of compensation has Bulgaria paid in Strasbourg  for the great deeds of that squadron? Has the Supreme judicial council noticed it? 

The speck in Judge Todorova's eye turned bigger than the planks in their own eyes. 

Against Judge Todorova the rulers are arranging a middle-ages psychosis as if she is a "judiciary witch" who must be burnt at a public fire stake- to bring relief to her executors. The servants who most helpfully bring wood for this fire are not worthy of the exclamation from that great stake:
"O, Sancta Simplicitas!"

I dedicate the following lines, written in 2007, to Judge Miroslava Todorova.

July 2012                                                   Valentin Braykov


                            PAKISTANI FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Pakistani cuisine is quite spicy but the food for thought that is now coming from Parksitan may burn quite a few mental stomachs.

On March 9th the Chief justice of Pakistan Mr. Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry was suspended from office on the orders of president Musharaff for alleged (but unspecified) misconduct. The removal of Justice Chaudhry provoked an unexpected vulcano of protests by population, civil servants and legal circles. In parallel to the rage of ordinary citizens several hundred lawyers in their black coats went to the streets of the major cities.           

Fraternities of Pakistani lawyers saw in the Chaudhry scandal an attempt by the rulers to humiliate and tame justice in general. Bloody riot clashes with police in Lahore and Islamabad turned the personal professional drama of Justice Chaudhry into a social and political barricade which united magistrates and lawyers. Even those who are close to the authorities refused to represent the government’s case against Mr. Chaudhry. Chief editors of newspapers and TV channels showed a remarkable resilience against the political pressure from Supreme judicial council not to cover the Chaudhry case. The offices of the private Geo TV were raided by police, glass doors and equipment smashed and tear gas shells fired inside- just because of its footage and comments on the affair, as the BBC reports.

Obviously Pakistan is giving a lesson to the world in civil society and selfless defense of judicial independence. Whatever the facts of the case may be it is clear that the professional and social prestige of Justice Chaudhry indicates a spiritual link with his protesting defenders. And whatever the Pakistani judicial system may be this spiritual link between the Judge and the Public indicates a living shared value- that of independent judiciary and of simple human fairness.

In Bulgaria nobody was excited by this Pakistani drama. And nobody got ashamed of it. Yet some claim they should go and civilize that part of the world!

What would be the reaction of Bulgarian magistrates and lawyers if the same fate befalls the Bulgaria supreme court president? Would we go to the streets to fight for him? Or we shall shrink into our cowardly shells and some shall even run to lick the government with new slanders against the removed judge and with suggestions for his succession?

Bulgaria has magistrates who are most worthy of such a sacrifice barricade. They have simply to show up by proudly raising their head at the Altar of Justice. And then they shall see they are not alone at all and that there are many around to stand up by them. Because the Temple of Justice is one although the functions within are different.

March 2007                                                  Valentin Braykov

On June 1st 2012 in Bulgaria entered into force the full ban on smoking at in-door public places. I am not going to comment on the exhausted topic of benefits and harms etc. I do not smoke.

Such a ban premises a mental deficiency of the common smoker, his inability like a small child to make an informed choice. That is why the state as a step-mother comes in the role of a trustee/guardian and tells the “child” what it can or cannot do. The smashed tax payer turns incapacitated.

It is worth noting that this ban comes globally and nationally from those power centers which allowed the present financial holocaust on all mankind happen. Millions of poor unemployed people are on the street with lost homes. Millions of broken families with unhappy children. And no one says who won the lost money and what it is being used for. No spaceship with cash load has left the earth? This money is somewhere around. The tongue-tied on these questions try to obscure them by the smoke of the banned cigarette.

What is this civilization which saves the banks but deserts the people?
What is this civilization which is financed by the effort and by the food bite (VAT and excise) and not by the result? It is not interested in the individual success. VAT-this French invention of 1954 can be placed next to the guillotine in the museum of French culture.

The crisis is not financial but a crisis of fairness. Because politicians fail on justice, they force the common man to save on his food.

In Bulgaria those who banned smoking are the same eunuchs in the harem of monopolies who suffocate the whole nation in the gas chambers of water supply, electricity, heating and fuel by the smoke of their monopoly prices. Also on Children’s day – June 1st!

10 years ago I was driving on the highway from Washington to Richmond. On one of the bridges over the road there was this sign:

“Why do politicians ban cigarettes while smoking cigars?”

No world cheater has ever cheated Moses’ clear choice before the Jewish people:

You either follow the Ten God’s Commands Or you follow the Golden calf.
But you cannot follow both!

The Greek Patriarch said something very true which remained intentionally unheard:

“Those who robbed Greece are not Christians-
regardless how many candles they light in Church”.

To believe that the suckers of tobacco excise have good intentions by banning public smoking is the same as to believe in the vegetarian advice of a smiling butcher in a meat shop.

June 1st, 2012                                                                                                               Valentin Braykov