Balgarianovinite.com The Plenum of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) adopted a decision on Thursday instructing courts to immediately mark certain categories of cases as “restricted access”. Case files in some proceedings will not be public, while in other cases only the operative parts of the judgments will be accessible, without their reasoning, the Justice Ministry said.
The SJC also instructed judges that, at their discretion, they may mark other cases containing sensitive information as having restricted access.
The issue was raised for discussion by Justice Minister Nikolay Naydenov and concerned lawyers’ almost unrestricted access through the Unified Portal for E-Justice to cases in which they are not procedural representatives. Naydenov called on SJC members to hold a debate and take decisions if they consider that there is a problem. The over four-hour debate was prompted by numerous alerts received by the Justice Ministry, as well as by the public reaction to the matter. The debate was joined by the Supreme Bar Council and representatives of Information Services AD.
The alerts followed an announcement by the Supreme Bar Council that, as of May 27, all lawyers have access through the Unified Portal for E-Justice to all court cases, in accordance with Article 31 of the Bar Act, except for cases containing specific sensitive information, including adoption proceedings, trade secrets, security proceedings and others. The reactions were strong and were summed up in publications with headlines such as: “Lawyer Petyo ‘the Euro’ Petrov Now Has Access to Every Electronic Court Case”.
A former investigating magistrate, Petrov is a power broker in a criminal network for influencing the Bulgarian judiciary. He is currently a fugitive from justice.
On May 21, the Sofia City Court found former investigating magistrate Petyo Petrov guilty of document forgery and fined him EUR 2,556, releasing him from criminal responsibility. The court also vacated the order on his indefinite detention and revoked the European Arrest Warrant issued for him.
Naydenov told the SJC that he had personally attended a test which showed that full access to an electronic case file and the documents it contains, including unredacted personal data, was possible, with documents freely available for download.
The Justice Minister was adamant that he had initiated the discussion not to deny the legally regulated right of lawyers to access case files, and even less to argue for such a restriction. However, when there is a real risk of citizens’ personal data being leaked through electronic justice mechanisms, this undermines trust in justice as a whole. He also stressed that the right of access to justice is not opposed to the protection of personal data under EUlegislation, including the GDPR.
The Supreme Bar Council said that it is about to adopt explicit rules on access to electronic case files, as well as amendments to the Code of Ethics.
Before the SJC Plenum meeting, the Justice Minister told the media that things at the SJC had been frozen over the past four years. He said that in the past three weeks, during which Parliament had allowed all interested parties to submit opinions on the procedure for electing a new SJC, enough opinions had been received to be discussed and analyzed so that no hasty decisions would be adopted. He added that a committee in the National Assembly will examine the opinions next week. Judicial Council Plenum Adopts Decision on Restricted Access to Certain Case Files 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-06-11 19:57:33 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law