Supreme Court on the resolution of the European Parliament: Unauthorized and direct interference in the work of Justice

The Supreme Court gave a resounding response to the recent resolution of the European Parliament on the Rule of Law in Greece.

The Administrative Plenary Session of the Supreme Court, with a strong majority of 49 to 13, characterized the resolution in question as an impermissible and direct interference in the work of the Greek judicial authorities, in heaps of cases that are judicially pending, with unproven and unsubstantiated objections.

In all the cases mentioned in the resolution, the administrative Plenary of the Supreme Court took the position that the mentioned are “vague, without documentation, without impartiality and without any assignment of the investigations to a national or community authority, as a result of which they constitute a direct interference in the work of of Greek justice”.

The administrative plenary session was convened following the initiative of the president of the Supreme Court, Ioannas Klapa, and the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Georgia Adelini, also participated. According to information, the supreme judges were placed in each part of the controversial resolution and contradicted what it describes about the functioning of justice in Greece and the handling of judicial officials in open investigations such as the investigations on Tempi, the investigations on telephone monitoring, corruption cases, media funding (the well-known Petsa list), the investigation into the murder of journalist Giorgos Karaivaz, but also the wreck of Pylos.

Special reference is made to the Resolution of the European Parliament on the judicial treatment of Panagiotis Dimitras, who is being prosecuted by the judicial authorities for a series of illegal actions, issues for which the Plenary of the Supreme Court was also concerned.

The minority of 13 Areopagits were of the opinion that the matter is of a political nature and cannot be the subject of the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court.

The rapporteur of the Administrative Plenary, Areopagitis Panagiotis Lymberopoulos, at the beginning of the meeting, referred extensively to all the issues raised by the resolution in question. According to information, Mr. Lymberopoulos, referring to the complaints for not referring political figures to the investigation of Tempi, clarified that the judiciary has significantly advanced the investigations into the tragedy with regard to non-political figures, while for any responsibilities of the politicians, he emphasized that the judiciary has no competence, as the Greek Constitution has assigned this competence for politicians only to the Parliament.

Regarding the wiretapping investigation and in particular the criticisms of the handling of the wiretapping case, both for the investigations and for the targeting of Christos Ramos, head of the Independent Authority, Mr. Lymberopoulos described it as impermissible interference in the work of the prosecutorial and judicial authorities the suggestions of the resolution for the ongoing investigation, as well as his objections to the assignment of the investigations to a supreme prosecutor.

Mr. Lymberopoulos also characterized the criticisms of the resolution on the case of Jacques Kostopoulos as direct and impermissible interference in the work of the judges, as he stated that the perpetrators have been tried and convicted in the first instance and the trial is now being held at the Court of Appeal, while a similar position was taken by and to the complaints about the murder of the journalist Giorgos Karaivaz, stressing, among other things, that the judiciary is investigating the case, that those involved have already apologized and there have been pretrial detentions.

According to information, Mr. Lymberopoulos also referred to the objections of the Resolution that the leadership of the supreme courts is appointed by the government, noting that this is provided for in the constitution which is in force with the will of the Greek people and that the relevant selection process is carried out in compliance with the constitution in terms of legitimacy, stressing that the unsupported references in the Resolution show Greek justice as a subordinate of politics.

Also, according to information, Mr. Lymberopoulos dismissed as vague and unsubstantiated the complaints about the investigations into the fatal shipwreck off Pylos, noting that the Resolution attempts to directly interfere with the work of the Greek judicial authorities.

A similar position was also proposed by Mr. Lymberopoulos for the treatment of victims of rape and sexual violence, arguing that the prosecutor’s authorities take charge of every complaint, there is a special prosecutor for minors and the prosecutor’s office appoints prosecutors to handle special issues for minors, cases of domestic violence and trafficking.

According to information, the Areopagite rapporteur concluded that the Resolution adopts questionable data and conclusions that have been drawn without documentation by quoting false and unconfirmed information.

He added that all this harms justice, since as he pointed out, it is possible to give citizens and community institutions the impression that the rule of law in Greece is declining due to corruption that includes the judiciary.