(Aug. 29, 2008) On August 25, 2008, the Interior Minister of Bulgaria, which has recently been admitted into the European Union, announced a number of police reforms aimed at fighting the notorious corruption and inefficiency of the nation's police force. In addition to providing better technical equipment for police officers, including new computers and cars, new regulations provide for thorough monitoring of policemen's activities through cameras installed in all police cars. These cameras, which cannot be turned off, record activities of police officers and people they are working with and transfer this information via the Internet to police headquarters.
Another important novelty is an amendment to the Police Service Law that removes the requirement for police officers to have a law degree and allows officers other than law graduates to investigate legally less complicated crimes and cases in which there is a known offender.Thisis designed toreduce the workload ofofficers dealing with legally complex cases. (Sofia's Police Investigators Get Computers, BULGARIAN TELEGRAPH AGENCY DAILY NEWS, Aug. 25, 2008, Emerging Markets database, available at http://www.securities.com.)