Interior Minister Roumen Petkov failed to put through his proposal the special intelligence resources (SIR) to be used without permission in exceptional cases of crime investigation.

Petkov had presented to the Cabinet these draft-amendments of the Penal Procedure Code (PPC), but had to withdraw them, mediapool.bg said.

The PPC defines specific terms of SIR usage in crime investigations.

Justice Minister Miglena Tacheva said that SIR should not be used during the whole investigation. On the contrary, stronger control on SIR usage should be implemented.

Law amendments were needed for the stronger control, mediapool.bg said.

Currently Petkov was “practically sovereign master of the SIRs,” although they can be used only after a court’s decision. The services, which had access to them, were all part of the Interior Ministry system, according to mediapool.bg.

On June 28 2007, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) stated that Bulgaria’s Interior Minister had enormous and unregulated rights in SIR usage. Each Bulgarian was a potential victim of the Minister’s unregulated rights, ECHR said.

A day later Perkov said that ECHR’s decision would be appealed.

Tacheva and Petkov agreed work groups of the two ministries, and the Supreme Judicial Council representatives to discuss Petkov’s proposals the Cabinet discusses them.