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A recent conference in Sofia spurred some thoughts of mine on authority and disagreeing. The more I think about it, the more I realize thatAUBG is not exactly the heaven of free expression. True, we are a step ahead of the Bulgarian state universities, but what we have achieved is not nearly enough. All this led me to reflect upon the attitudes of our Student Government to criticism, but before that, let's try to add a nuance first. To kick off, one of the more interesting articles in the Nov 14, 2008 edition of the Capital newspaper was an interview with Neli Kuckova, a judge of appeal and speaker of the Union of Judges. The interview came out as a response to a certain Minister's and to Prime-minister Sergey Stanishev's criticism and designation as „outrageous“ of a judges' resolution on the metallurgic company Kremikovci.* The conclusion I draw is that key figures in government seem to fail to understand the importance and role of judicial review. As Mr. Kuckova put it, „And if the politicians are more far-sighted, they must help strenghten [the judicial] independence, and not continuously deal blows to it with the pitiful purpose to solve a minor problem.“** So, there we have in Bulgaria – the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, and the media. In AUBG we have the role models of the Student Government, and the student media. Firstly, criticism from outside the SG is an important factor in excercising control over senators. Unfortunately, I have witnessed behavior of senators analogical to Sergey Stanishev' treatment of the judges' resolution. Senators are not supposed, nor expected, to agree with an opposing opinion from the student body, just the same way the administration is not expected, nor supposed to agree with the opinions of the SG (fight, metaphorically, is required over agreement). We all serve different functions, and the role of the student body should be the role of the civil society in the real world: namely, to serve as a mechanism for checks and balances for our elected representatives. And this role should be protected by all sides of the table. While the above principles may seem evident and true in words, practice shows they are not widely accepted among the Senate. Here I have only my personal examples to support my claim, and that is mostly because public criticism to the SG from the student body outside the All Student Assemblies has been almost non-existant in my three years of studying in this university. I will not mention names because of Verve's new policy, but some senators in our SG blindly believe that they should not be criticised, no matter how seldom someone cares to write about their doings. And they exert efforts (I admit, probably unintentionally, but that does not justify them) to oppose criticism, efforts that serve if not as an intimidation at least as a deterrent to future criticism. (This might be the right place to point out that this is a personal blog, thus I reserve the right to leave the above claim unsupported, as an opinion, based not only on my immediate experience, but also on my interaction with the SG in the past couple of years.) The bottom line is, senators need to reconsider their role as leaders of this student community. Any action of theirs is detrimental. They are public figures, and believe it or not, respected among many of the student body. Each and every one of the eleven senators is representative of the Senate. A fervent written remark, or bashing on their side is unacceptable because there might be many critics, but there are only eleven senators. Senators cannot allow themselves to fall below a certain level of ethics, even if they believe their „opponent“ (as I have heard some of them say) has not raised the bar high enough. ____________________________________ * "Sergey Stanishev reproached the court," The Capital Online Edition, Nov 14, 2008, Friday; (accessed Nov 19, 2008)
** "It's not the first time they intimidate us" Rosen Bosev, The Capital Online Edition, Nov 14, 2008, Friday; (accessed Nov 19, 2008)
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