Nikos Androulakis, President of the Greek opposition party PASOK-KINAL, spoke at Greek Parliament yesterday and made a scathing attack about the deterioration of rule of law in the country under the incumbent New Democracy party and its leader, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
The leader of PASOK-KINAL highlighted a laundry-list of what the party sees as offenses and violations of justice in his tirade against the government, including the Predator wiretapping scandal, the Tempi railway accident, and New Democracy’s attempt to amend criminal codes “for the umpteenth time in 5 years,” based on the needs of the party, according to a report at toVima.
He also drew attention to the fact the European Parliament and its institutions are watching developments closely, and have expressed concern that key persons involved in scandals, such as the Predator wiretapping scandal, have not yet been summoned by the Greek judiciary.
The Criminal Code
Commenting on the proposal to change the criminal code of Greece, Androulakis said “Today we are not discussing reform, but rather the legalization of criminal populism…For the ‘umpteenth’ time in five years the government is amending the criminal code solely on the needs of its party.”
According to Androulakis, “the draft law on the Criminal Codes abolishes and shrinks institutional guarantees and procedures of the criminal trial that have been in place for 100 years, favoring sloppiness and a fast-track processing criminal trial”.
He pointed out that “major reforms are not drawn up by a Minister in collaboration with two deputized officials, but by law-preparatory committees,” and that the observations of 39 law school professors in the country were ignored. He also underlined, “Many provisions of the draft law raise serious issues of compatibility with the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.”
Predator Wiretapping Scandal
Taking the opportunity to raise again the lack of progress in the Predator wiretapping scandal, of which he was also a target, Androulakis questioned, “how it is possible that justice has not summoned Mr. Dimitriadis?”
Grigoris Dimitriadis, the nephew of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, was the leader’s chief of staff and was in charge of the country’s secret service during the time of the scandal.
Dimitriadis has not been summoned by Greece’s judicial system to examine his potential role in the wiretapping scandal, but he has filed a defamation lawsuit against journalists and media outlets who revealed the scandal and linked him to it, in what media watch groups have called a “startling example of a strategic lawsuit against public participation (Slapp).
