The new Bulgarian Parliament adopted Thursday a new criminal code aimed at meeting European Union demands for a more efficient justice system as a condition for Bulgaria's membership of the union in 2007.

The country's legal system has often been criticized as too slow, inefficient and incapable of holding notorious criminals who are left at liberty to settle scores with a spectacular degree of violence.

Suspects even in serious cases were released within 24 hours pending investigation by a national investigator's office, an entity with no equal in the EU, said Bulgarian Justice Minister Georgy Petkanov.

Parliament adopted the changes, including measures to hasten investigations and shorten the time taken for cases to go to trial, by 185 votes to 18. The code will take effect by the end of October.

Bulgaria's new Socialist Prime Minister Sergei Stanichev is due in Brussels on Monday for a meeting with European Commission president Jose Manuel Durao Barroso just as commission experts arrive in Sofia to begin their evaluation of the country's reform program.

Their assessment will form the basis of a report to Brussels at the end of October, which will determine if Bulgaria, along with Romania, is deemed fit to join the EU on January 1, 2007.

The two countries, which signed adhesion treaties in April, risk seeing their membership postponed by a year if they do not hasten reforms, particularly in relation to their justice systems.