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Participation in a public discussion on INDICATORS OF PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN JUSTICE: TOOLS FOR POLICY ASSESSMENT on the invitation of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Sofia, 24 March 2009.

A discussion on Indicators of public confidence in justice: Tools for policy assessment was held on 24 March 2009 at the National Institute of Justice. On the invitation of the organizers, the Center for the Study of Democracy, the event was attended by IISC representatives - Mr. Rumen Petkov, GM Chairperson, and Mr. Kamen Penkov, Executive Officer. Statements and reports in the public discussion were made by: the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Bulgaria; Prof. Mike Hough, Institute for Criminal Policy Research, King's College; Mr. Hristo Manchev, Deputy Prosecutor General and Chair of the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office; Assoc. Prof. Pencho Penev, Director of the National Institute of Justice; and Julian Roberts, Professor of criminology at Oxford University. Also participating were Constitutional Justices, Boiko Naydenov, Director of the National Investigation Service, Ana Karaivanova, Chief Judicial Inspector, magistrates, academics, etc. The event was organized under the project Indicators of public confidence in justice: Tools for policy assessment. The purpose of the project is to elaborate and pilot new research-based indicators of public confidence in justice - a concept which includes the issues of fairness, confidence and insecurity. Information about the interpretation of the indications will be collected based on the assumption that there is a close relation between the public ideas of justice and the quality of the administration of justice. In addition, a consensus among the Member States should be reached about the importance of the criminal policy assessment on the basis of objective criteria such as public trust and security.

According to Pencho Penev, Director of the National Institute of Justice, the topic of the conference and the discussion is strikingly hot because the public confidence in justice is an extremely important indicator of its quality.

Prof. Mike Hough, one of the project lecturers, presented a chart of the crime in England and Wales and analyzed the connection between the economic crisis and crime. He outlined the main project goals, which include a public opinion study whether the police and the court do their jobs well with the ambition of covering most European countries in the social review. This will identify the differences in Europe with respect to confidence in justice.

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