Върховен касационен съд на Република България
Mrs. Galina Zaharova
President since: 10 February 2022.
Judge of the Supreme Court since: 2013
Career before being judge of the Supreme Court:
Judge Galina Zaharova graduated at Faculty of Law, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski” in 1988 and has over 33 years of judicial experience.
In the period 1988-1989 she was a trainee-judge in the Sofia City Court, and from 1989 to 1991 she was a junior judge in the same Court. From 1991 to 1992 she was a regional judge in the Fifth Regional Court and in 1992 she became vice-president of the Court.
She worked as a judge in the Sofia City Court from 1993 to 1998, and in the period 1998-1999 she was vice-president of the Court. She was a judge at the Sofia Court of Appeal from 1999 to 2004 and from 2004 to 2007 she was its vice-president.
From 2007 to 2011 she was a member of the Supreme Judicial Council. After that she continued to work as a judge in the Sofia Court of Appeal until 2013.
In the Supreme Court of Cassation, judge Galina Zaharova has been administering justice since 2013, and since 2017 she has been the President of the Second Criminal Division. On November 13, 2018, she was appointed by the Judicial Board of the Supreme Judicial Council as vice-president of the Supreme Court of Cassation and Head of the Criminal Chamber.
She has a degree in EU Law from the European Center for Judges and Lawyers at the European Institute of Public Administration in Luxembourg.
She is a member of the Program Council of the National Institute of Justice, has been a lecturer in a number of trainings organized by the Institute.
Judge Galina Zaharova is a representative of the Supreme Court of Cassation in the National Commission for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings at the Council of Ministers, in the Central Commission for Combating Antisocial Behavior of Minors at the Council of Ministers, in the Council for Implementing the Updated Strategy for Judicial Reform and in the National Council for Anti-Corruption Policies at the Council of Ministers.
She served on the Council of Europe's Expert Committee on Early Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency in Strasbourg. She was an expert in a regional project for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, as well as an expert for Bulgaria in studies of the European Commission on the institutional and legal framework of judicial cooperation in criminal matters in the European Union, on the minimum penalties applicable in the Member States and on the penalties applicable to deprivation of rights in the Member States.
