When corruption is entrenched at the level of institutions, then its consequences end up being disastrous. In cases where its suppression systems fail, the last resort for those who are affected by the phenomenon is to appeal to the Court. But what happens when corruption is entrenched at the core of Justice? Even worse, what happens when the rest of the institutions are aware of the corruption in Justice and do not react? What is the fate of such countries?
According to a Public Issue survey in February 2023, 75% of citizens surveyed believe that judges in our country are “quite or too corrupt” and only 2% think so “they are not corrupt at all”. A series of serious questions arise from the recorded general shake-up of public opinion’s confidence in the Judiciary:
- What can be the fate of a country when its judicial system has fallen into disrepute?
- Are the continuous condemnations of our country by the European Court of Human Rights a coincidence?
- Is it a coincidence that the majority of the Judiciary leaders after their term ends don the mantle of the party body that selected them by occupying positions in critical government sectors?
- Where should the ordinary citizen seek refuge when he finds every day that the criminal justice system on the one hand exhausts the limits of the law on cleaners who falsified the primary school diploma in order to secure a “salary” of four hundred euros and on the other hand exempts ministers who delete from the Lagarde list their relatives?
- Is the disintegration of the Judiciary a result of the entrenched system of partisanship?
- Do we as citizens have responsibility for the consolidation of this system which is the festering wound of the country?
However, because the “independent” Judiciary is slightly dependent on the political system of party democracy, an additional major question arises: When the parties that manage the fortunes of the country and preach its prosperity are unable to put their house in order, since they are permanently over-indebted due to mismanagement, is it ever possible for them to deliver on their promises?
A case of permanent corruption…
The above general questions are raised in my recent book “A Little Handbook of Corruption in Justice”, which has as its starting point and lasting point of reference a twenty-year court case of extreme corruption in the field of criminal and fiscal justice, which is dealt with in my first book “Game the System”.
It is noteworthy that this case, which was submitted to the Court by Financial Inspectors with full documentation, was not handled by a single judge or a minor judicial formation, so that its management and outcome can be attributed to a lack of evidence, to superficiality of assessment, to judicial failure, accidental error, legal misinterpretation or miscarriage of justice. On the contrary, the case was handled by many judges, of the criminal and fiscal justice, including successive presidents of the Court of Auditors, during the period from 2003 to 2021.
All of them were fully aware of the scope and severity of the violations and the documentation of the findings of the audit and of the magnitude of the State’s damage both financially, and above all, at an institutional and social level. In fact, given that those involved in the corruption scandal were not ordinary citizens but prominent political figures, identified by name, then the evaluation of the case becomes of great importance…
Key questions for Justice
The above general questions are an offshoot of the absolutely specific relentless questions posed in the reference book “Game with the System”, and all of them are based on solid financial evidence. What follows indicatively reveals the Constitutional deviation through the deadly embrace of political and judicial power that has led the Greek Judiciary to the ultimate point of collapse: Can a country hope for a way out of the morass of decline when:
- Executives of the supreme fiscal court and their spouses, the director of a government political party and his wife, a minister and director of his political office and the son of a minister, are they operating as embezzlers of public money, under the “blessings” of the Court of Audit?
- Does the supreme fiscal court, under flimsy pretexts, persistently refuse to examine the facts and evidence, acting as a defense counsel for squanders of public money?
- The same court stubbornly refuses to return to the State defiantly illegal compensation and “needs” eighteen whole years (2003 – 2021), to deliver an incomplete, biased and deliberately unsubstantiated audit?
- Successive presidents of the same court are indifferent in the face of irrefutable evidence of illegal compensations received even by executives or spouses of executives?
- An administrative official, for the first time in the annals since the establishment of the Court of Auditors, for a number of years forces the highest fiscal court to effectively cancel or to successive corrections of punitive audit reports, thus demonstrating its complete unreliability?
- Does the Council of Appeals defiantly ignore a fully substantiated prosecution proposal for those accused of a multitude of criminal acts at the expense of the State and issue an exculpatory Will without the slightest review of the evidence in the case file, with the sole criterion being the completely vague and unsubstantiated invocation of good faith?
- Successive Finance Ministry leaderships at best diluting and at worst undermining efforts to recover illegal compensation?
- Can all of the above work independently and not separately?
These are some of the questions that arise through the chronological evidence of the book case.
By studying them, one can be led to safe answers to the above questions, which unfortunately, are not isolated and have stigmatized the Greek state since its foundation until today. Nothing is accidental and despite the recent painful bankruptcy, the country’s history seems to be repeating itself. Where is Greece going? Where are we all going together?
The response of the Supreme Court is not convincing
But there is also the opposite opinion, which was formulated by the Administrative Plenary of the Supreme Court: “During its meeting today, the Administrative Plenary of the Supreme Court, after a relevant discussion and exchange of views on the subject of the resolution of the European Parliament of February 7, 2024 and after assessing that it is possible to give citizens and the community institutions the impression that the The Rule of Law in Greece is declining due to corruption, which holds all government officials, including the judiciary, apodecided by a majority (49-13) the following: It assures that Greek judicial and prosecutorial officials serve the rule of law and the principles of the separation of functions, the independence of the Judiciary, fair trial and the protection of the presumption of innocence of every citizen and perform their duties in obedience only to the Constitution, the laws and in their consciousness(the press representative of the Supreme Court Panagiotis Lymberopoulos-Areopagitis).
How persuasive can this assurance be that refers to the age of “decide and decree”? Can such a decision overturn the perception of the vast majority of Greek citizens and the ranking of the Greek Judiciary by the World Economic Forum in 83rd place among 141 places, based on dependence on governments and corporate interests? Rather, in the end, it proves even to the most credulous, that the reality in Justice is becoming more and more disappointing, more and more dangerous.
Laura Kovesi’s message
Fortunately for Greece, the European Prosecutor, Laura Kovesi, did not comply with the instructions of the “decision” of the Plenary of the Supreme Court. During her hearing at the Committee of the European Parliament, she unleashed fierce “fire” against the government for the crime of Tempe and the state of the Rule of Law in Greece, as results of corruption!
He specifically said: “How many tragedies like Tempe do we need to understand that corruption kills?”. Realizing the situation in Greece, he asks the Commission to cancel the law on the irresponsibility of ministers.
It is a national need, that the leaderships of the supreme courts of the country land on reality and stop walking deaf, willfully blind and self-admiring. However, the citizens also have part of the responsibility. With our outcry, we can bring to justice those who ruthlessly embarrass the Justice and turn into a majority the appreciable minority of Areopagits who opposed the decision of the Supreme Court. Maria Karystianou paved the way for the social opposition. Let us follow him. The case of Tempe and the rallying cry of the Greek society can be the catalyst for the separation of political and judicial power and the sanitization of the seriously ill justice system in our country.
Georgios Boutos is a former Financial Inspector and Head of the Directorate for the Processing of Legislative Acts of the General Accounting Office of the State.
