The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, in its latest meeting on the implementation of the European Court’s judgments that concluded on 25 September, adopted decisions in the Velikova group of cases. These cases concern mainly deaths and ill-treatment by law-enforcement officers and the lack of an effective investigation into these events.
The Committee welcomed progress in certain areas, such as the fact that allegations of ill-treatment by penitentiary staff have become rare, and the recent reform which introduced the anonymous identification of officers participating in special police operations, thus removing one of the major problems encountered in practice.
The Committee noted however reports indicating the persistence of risks of ill-treatment by the police and of impunity in law enforcement. Given that this group of cases has remained under its supervision for 19 years, it insisted firmly on the need to rapidly adopt comprehensive additional measures to combat the risk of ill-treatment in police detention and to ensure the effectiveness of criminal investigations into allegations of ill-treatment by law-enforcement officers.
The Committee urged the Bulgarian authorities to introduce judicial review of refusals by prosecutors to open investigations and to entrust the preliminary inquiries and investigations to specialised prosecutors and investigating magistrates who do not have working relationship with the law-enforcement officers whose actions have been challenged.
Besides, the Committee of Ministers urged the Bulgarian authorities to adequately and without further delay criminalise torture and to consider the need to criminalise the extortion of a confession from a suspect who is not formally accused of a criminal offence. The Committee equally insisted on the need to strengthen existing safeguards against ill-treatment in detention, such as the legal assistance arrangements, the quality and confidentiality of medical examinations and the mechanisms of reporting to the Prosecutor’s Office of medical findings of signs of ill-treatment and complaints received by the police.
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