The new totalitarian Penal Code

There is no doubt that the BSP-DPS government, which has taken the reins of Bulgaria’s political life for the past eight months, is a constant generator of bad political ideas and legislation. The ruling party intends to impose additional taxes on renewable energy producers, which will probably kill this business. Another interesting plan is aimed at “reviving” and pouring budget funds into failing enterprises. The state also plans to create a land commission to lease agricultural land; there have also been voices in support of a complete ban on the sale of agricultural land to foreigners.

The leitmotif of all these policies is obvious – the return of the state to the economy, the stifling of private initiative and the trampling of personal freedom. However, the prize for the most restrictive and potentially most harmful, especially for “ordinary” citizens, measures goes to the draft of a new Criminal Code. In many ways, it resembles a text taken directly from the legislation of a totalitarian state.

The texts dedicated to treason caused the widest public response. And rightly so – the text prescribes punishments for all those who act “ in the service of another state or a foreign organization, or an organization under foreign control, in order to serve it to the detriment of the Republic ” [1]. This extremely fluid definition can mean anything, and at some point everyone who works for international companies or organizations or is in some way financed from abroad may turn out to be enemies of the Motherland and fall under the blows of the law. On the one hand, such a formulation is a convenient tool for eliminating the opposition, under the pretext that it is a conduit for foreign interests (an analogy with Putin’s ban on NGOs being financed from abroad cannot help but arise here), and on the other hand, it plays on the populist notes that are so impressive to the general public – here, the rulers are fighting the foreigners who aim to conquer our country and enslave us. The negative effect that the adoption of such a text would have on investments in the country is also obvious - any company that decides to risk its capital in Bulgaria would think twice before doing so if at any moment it is threatened with turning out to be an enemy of the homeland, and its local employees - criminals-renegades.

One of the key texts criminalizes the refusal to pay pension and health insurance contributions. This measure is an attempt to solidify the monopoly position of state funds on the insurance services market. For years, various departments have stated that the health and pension systems are not only not working, but also represent a black hole for budget funds, and yet none of them has yet taken up reforming them. The proposed criminalization is indicative of the way in which state authorities impose their “services”: in a free market, the only way to attract customers is to offer a better/cheaper product compared to that of the competition. For its part, the state apparatus, instead of making any effort to improve its product, uses its violent instruments to force its subjects to use it; otherwise, it threatens them with prison. Freedom of choice is completely absent here, and if someone happens to be dissatisfied with the quality of these health/pension services, they can additionally use others. After he paid for the state ones, however. Even if we leave aside the gross violation of freedom of choice, such a text is in direct contradiction with the current constitution. There, social security [2] is defined as the right of every citizen; however, the concept of right implies a personal choice whether the individual will use the given public service or not. The new Penal Code, however, turns this right into an obligation, and those who decide not to use it – into criminals.

No less worrying are the articles that refer to the possession of narcotics. “Whoever, in violation of established rules, acquires, holds or receives a narcotic substance or an analogue of a narcotic substance” [3], should be sentenced to between one and six years in prison. What is new here is that there are no defined minimum quantities of narcotics – anyone who “holds” any quantity is considered a criminal. This text is a huge step backwards in Bulgarian legislation in this area. To the extent that state intervention in the lives of people who have chosen to use some form of drugs is necessary at all, it should be completely different – not to declare them lawbreakers and throw them behind bars for years, where they will not only not stop their harmful habit, but will rather strengthen it, but – if it really claims to be concerned about their health, let it facilitate their access to treatment and rehabilitation, instead of putting them on an equal footing with murderers and rapists.

The draft Criminal Code does not ignore property rights. This occurs in relation to the possession of cultural values, and the crime is defined as “property concealment” [4]. The Law on Cultural Heritage, in turn, defines as “cultural value” a number of objects, including books, works of art, handicrafts and others, older than 50 (in some cases 100) years [5]. By presumption, cultural values are public property; and while the law allows for their private possession, they are subject to a special registration and permit regime [6]. Currently, there is almost no household in Bulgaria that does not own at least one (and in most cases many) objects that fall under this definition. For this reason, all owners of a valuable pre-World War II book or an antique wardrobe are faced with two alternatives – either to register them (a slow and expensive procedure), or to live with the constant threat of one to six years in prison for hiding them from the state. The first action is practically impossible – the state simply does not have the administrative resources to carry out such a registration, and this would lead to an unimaginable amount of wasted time on the part of both the administration and the citizens. The second is yet another mechanism for turning people into criminals, and all because the state has decided that it can arbitrarily appropriate their property. The presence of such a text in the draft clearly indicates that private property is not perceived as a value, but quite the opposite – as a phenomenon that should be tolerated until it can be put to an end.

Other potential problems created by the new Criminal Code include violations of the right to protest and association, as well as a ban on civil servants publicly criticizing the actions of those in power.

To summarize – the texts in the draft Criminal Code contain numerous and different ways to eliminate political opposition, to criminalize free choice and even private property. Comrades, boldly forward to the bright totalitarian future!

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