Judicial Map. An Attempt to Restart the Debate

The study shows that there is no coherent judicial organization model. Therefore, the judicial map is a sum of all courts and prosecutor’s offices without a guiding organizational criterion except for the instance control one. Throughout the years, the hierarchical division was supplemented by the atypical for Bulgaria division of jurisdiction according to the accused individuals, as specialized criminal courts and prosecutor’s offices hear cases on the basis of this principle. That leads to drawbacks which become clearly evident when the system needs to be reformed. The reform of the judicial map, translated into plain language, means optimizing the number of courts and prosecutor’s offices due to a change of the economic, demographic and political conditions. While the world is changing, Bulgaria is shrinking and aging – both generationally and technologically. The diminished population, in places reaching depopulation, and the introduction of new technologies, necessitates the restructuring of the heavy institutional apparatus.