In her article for the journal D+C, the director of the KAF-Rule of Law Program South East Europe analyzes the role of civil society actors in the legal and justice reform in Bulgaria and Romania: Communist regimes in Central, East and Southeast Europe almost completely suppressed civil society, applying the motto “the state is everything, the citizen is nothing”. Today, building an active civil society is essential for transforming the countries in South East Europe into democratically run constitutional states that obey the rule of law. Judicial and legal reforms are affected too.