Baku, July 17, AZERTAC In 2024 Bulgaria ranked fourth in the EU in the ratio of professional judges per 100,000 people: 35.4, behind Croatia (43.3), Slovenia (40.2) and Luxembourg (36.0) and ahead of Romania (35.3), according to figures released by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the EU, on Friday. On the lowest end, there was Ireland with 3.6 judges per 100 000 people, followed by Austria (4.3), Spain (6.2), Czechia (6.7), and Italy (7.9), according to the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA).On the average, the EU had 15.7 professional judges per 100 000 people in 2024, down from 17.7 in 2014. Female professional judges are more prevalent in most EU countries, Eurostat reports. The share was 64.4% in Bulgaria, down from 81.4% in Slovenia (the highest share among EU countries), Latvia (79.7%) and Greece (75.5%). This press release marks the Day of International Criminal Justice, July 17, the anniversary of the adoption in 1998 of the Rome Statute as the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC).