The President of Freedom of Navigation, Zoe Konstantopoulou, intervened in the session of the Plenary of the Parliament, on the Bill of the Ministry of Justice, immediately following the speech of the Minister of Justice, denouncing the violent entanglement of executive power and judicial function which often involves the legislative function, with on the occasion of the provision establishing an opinion of the Judges in the process of appointing the Leader of the Judiciary by the Government:
“The problem is that we do not have an Independent Judiciary and this problem is not solved by your proposal to involve the Judges in an even more entangled process. In fact, more Judges should be involved in this process, expectations should be formed and a negotiation framework should be formed. My own position throughout time, has been expressed at every meeting of the Conference of Presidents, since the time I was Speaker of the House, I have always recorded my opposition to the fact that the Government and the House are involved in the appointment of the Leadership of Justice and the official position and proposal of the Freedom of Navigation, which we have submitted to you in a timely, valid, detailed and repeated manner is the Revision of the Constitution so that we have:
abolition of Parliamentary Immunity
abolition of Ministerial Immunity – the Law on the Responsibility of Ministers – and
abolition of the appointment of the Head of Justice by the Government,
because all three of these conditions create the context of political impunity for criminal behavior, the context of inequality, the context of the privileges of a political staff who do not want to be controlled under the same conditions that ordinary citizens are controlled, the context of the rabid interventions of the government authority in the judiciary”.
Zoi Konstantopoulou then referred to the Government interventions that took place, both in the trial of injunctive measures before the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens, where 781 LARCO workers requested temporary judicial protection, as well as the active Government intervention in the process for the Tempe Crime: “Intervene and you and seven other Ministers in a trial of the Single Member Court of First Instance of Athens for injunctive measures, where 781 LARCO workers requested temporary judicial protection from the Judge of the Single Member Court of First Instance of Athens in order to continue working. You brought in provisions just a few months ago, actively interfering with the Tempe Crime process, taking the power of impeachment away from the Board of Appeals and giving it to the District Attorney, one to decide and one to be more easily influenced and controlled of which three plus one, three Appellants with a President and a Prosecutor.
You said not 3 Appellants and Prosecutor, but only Prosecutor. You have removed the jurisdiction of the judgment, and it remains of course to be judged, for it is our opinion that a Joint Jury should try the Tempe Crime. However, you removed the jurisdiction from the Tripartite Court of Criminal Appeals, from 3 Appellants with a President of Appellates and gave it to one Appellate, once more only one will judge. One is more easily controlled and influenced than many.
And with the same provisions that you brought, as we were informed by the Media, you will refute me if it is not true, the Spartans’ Parliamentary Group and those who have become independent also benefited, because the competence changed. We read that the trial is now changing Court.
You will confirm or deny me. However, we are monitoring what is happening and we are also monitoring how the votes change in the Conferences and in the Plenary when there are sub-litigations, expectations and other kinds of interventions and the citizens need to know exactly what is happening. Freedom Sailing, Mr. Minister, firmly believes that if there is no Independent Justice, we cannot talk regarding Democracy and our country is suffering terribly. It became the “bad country” and the country of “let’s go wherever it goes” precisely because for years the impunity of the political staff and the lack of transparency prevailed”.
With reference to Pavlos Polakis, Zoi referred to the abusive behavior and attacks she receives from the New Democracy Parliamentary Group. “You know very well that I have raised the issue of the bad example that political personnel produce for society. And you know very well that I have repeatedly raised the issue with you and Mr. Mitsotakis with 25 topical questions.”
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