The meeting of the Committee on Institutions and Transparency in the Parliament is in progress on the conclusion of the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court Georgia Adelini on the wiretapping.
SYRIZA, PASOK, KKE, Pleussi Eleftherias, New Left and Niki filed requests for a convergence of the Parliament’s Institutions and Transparency Committee with the main request being the summoning of Ms. Adelini and the filing of the wiretapping findings, based on which the case is archived regarding in the EYP or any other government agency.
However, the government declares that “the matter is over”, the government declares, accusing the opposition of tactics “that are not in keeping with the Democracy”, as well as that “it does not respect the separation of powers”.
“Clash” with “good morning”
The meeting of the Institutions and Transparency Committee began with intense tension over the process and a conflict between Thanasis Bouras and Zoe Konstantopoulou, where the opposition’s requests for the transmission of the conclusion on the case of telephone surveillance to the Parliament and for the summons of the prosecutor of the Arion will be discussed Pagos and the prosecutor Georgia Adelinis and Achillea Zisi respectively, in order to give explanations for their decisions.
The Konstantopoulou-Boura dialogue
Zoe Konstantopoulou: “It is clear that there is an attempt by the government to violently and quickly close the commission. We want plenty of time to position ourselves.”
Thanasis Bouras (Committee Chairman): “Procedure set and approved.”
Z. Konstantopoulou: “You came to wash up.”
T. Bouras: “Additional time will be given but today we are discussing your requests and not the merits of the case.”
Z. Konstantopoulou: “I want the reason.”
Theodora Tzakri: The two prosecutors should be summoned to the Parliament
“Taking into account that there is the required majority of 2/5 of the members of the Commission to summon to a hearing the Prosecutor of the AP Mr. Adelinis and the Deputy Prosecutor Mr. Zisi, Mr. President, you should immediately call these two prosecutors and forward to our Committee the relevant case file”, emphasized the SYRIZA MP, Theodora Tzakri.
Any other claim that our Committee lacks jurisdiction to summon the two prosecutorial officers is unfounded.
According to article 43 A of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, the Institutions and Transparency Committee can deal with
Firstly, with issues concerning the activity of the National Intelligence Service, while
Its second object is “the research and evaluation of every element useful for the study and elaboration of proposals that contribute to the transparency of politics and the public life of the country in general”.
It is obvious that the information about the content of the Finding of the Deputy Prosecutor Mr. Zisi and the relevant prosecutor’s order of Ms. Adelinis because they refer to the major issue of the wiretapping of the telephone communications of the country’s highest institutional actors, including the Chief of the Armed Forces, falls within the scope of our Committee’s examination as a matter concerning the transparency and functioning of politics and in general the public life of the country.
After all, this is not the first time. I remind you that in 2017 the Prosecutor of Appeals, Ms. Tsatani, was summoned by a unanimous decision of the Institutions and Transparency Committee, which also voted for the ND party, and the refusal of the Prosecutor at that time to go to the Parliament had caused cross-party anger.
In a parliamentary democracy, the Parliament, i.e. the legislative body, is considered the preeminent expression of the popular will, as its members are directly elected by the citizens.
A corollary of the above principle is the right of the Institutions and Transparency Committee of the BtE to summon judges and other judicial officials to examine issues related to the operation of justice, the application of laws and transparency in the judicial process. This right derives from its general competence to control and supervise the institutions of the state.
These hearings aim to:
• Ensuring transparency in the functioning of the judiciary.
• To strengthen the accountability of judicial officials.
• In investigating complaints or cases that raise issues of transparency and ethics.
The summons to a hearing of the above Prosecutorial officers does not conflict with the principle of the separation of powers, since, on the one hand, it concerns the transparency of the judicial function and the general competence of the Parliament to supervise all the institutions of the state, but on the other hand, it does not tends to overturn or alter the judicial decision or to interfere with it, given that there is neither a pending judicial process, nor a final judicial decision or will of a judicial council.
We add that the Greek people and we, as their elected representatives, have the right according to Article 10 of the ECHR to obtain knowledge of the content of the above two prosecution documents and the relevant documents of the case file.
We emphasize that the secrecy of the pre-trial refers to its conduct and does not apply after the end of the relevant prosecutorial investigation.
On the contrary, the study of the relevant legal arguments of the conclusion of Mr. Zisi and the relevant provision of Ms. Adelinis is absolutely necessary for our information and for the evaluation of the data listed in them.
The view that the prosecutorial orders of the two prosecutorial officers constitute judicial decisions and are therefore not subject to review by our Committee is wrong because it rests on a wrong premise.
In particular, the prosecutor’s act of filing a case file does not constitute a court decision, but a temporary prosecutor’s judgment that can be revoked and in any case we do not control the prosecutor’s judgment, but we ask to be informed about its content and to evaluate the evidence-legal arguments that recorded in these two documents.
We add that if the legal arguments are deemed insufficient, every citizen, as well as our Committee, has the right to criticize them.
A prerequisite for the acceptance of a temporary judgment such as the above two prosecution judgments is the knowledge of their content and the study of the legal arguments.
Observance of transparency presupposes precisely the information about the content of the two documents.
The DA of the prosecutor Ms. Adelinis does not constitute an update on the exact content of the provisions.
We learned that there are two prosecution documents whose content remains unknown.
The majority’s refusal to subpoena the two prosecutors and forward the case documents to our Committee constitutes a cover-up and contempt for the fundamental right to information on the wiretapping issue.
Given that the European Parliament has already condemned our country, among other things, for the issue of wiretapping, the new fact that there is a prosecutorial crisis, which is not made public, causes an additional serious violation of the Rule of Law in our country.
Therefore, Mr. President, you must immediately call these two prosecutors and forward the relevant file to our Committee.
#Meeting #Committee #Institutions #Transparency #wiretapping #Boura #Konstantopoulou #episode #good #morning
