THE RIGHT TO HOPE: PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS AND LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT PAROLE

Abstract

This analysis critically examines the institution of presidential pardon in Bulgaria as the sole mechanism for reviewing life imprisonment without the right to parole. Although the European Court of Human Rights ("ECtHR") in its judgment in the case of Harakchiev and Tolumov v. Bulgaria accepts this mechanism as formally compatible with Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights ("ECHR"), the article argues that in practice, pardon is a fictitious legal remedy. Its discretionary, non-transparent, and politically sensitive nature makes it incompatible with the essential requirements of the "right to hope" established in the ECtHR's case law in Winter and Others v. the United Kingdom. Through a combination of legal-doctrinal analysis of the case law of the ECtHR and critical institutional analysis of the Bulgarian pardon system, based on official documents and specific cases, the conclusion is reached that reliance on an outdated, mercy-based prerogative creates a structural deficit in the country's criminal policy. This deficit undermines the principles of the rule of law and the rehabilitative purpose of punishment, which necessitates the urgent creation of a predictable, clear criteria-based judicial or administrative mechanism for reviewing life sentences.