2022 was the year we learned that the values ​​we took for granted in Greece are not given to everyone and that we need to fight socially and politically to protect them. This is a year that was characterized by human rights violations with historical dimensions, as for the first time in the post-colonial period, it is discovered that the National Intelligence Service, once it came under the direct administrative control of the Prime Minister and while it was run by persons in absolute confidence, carried out an illegal surveillance program for politicians, journalists and other persons who occupy an important place in the political and public life of the country.

The surveillance case has opened up a big problem of how to deal institutionally with the government when, by turning the parliamentary majority into a parliamentary “hand”, it tries to impose silence on independent authorities. How, when even through changing the law, relentlessly, in front of everyone, he imposes the cover and protection of the EYP leaders. However, it also emphasizes how a representative of an independent institution, such as the judiciary, agrees to renounce the independence granted to him by the rule of law and to tolerate an attempt by a controlled supply company to fight off the control of such an independent body. , ADAE, which today bears the weight of the dignity of our legal culture. It may not be a coincidence that with this practice, citizens are shocked and thus reach the level of 70% who believe that justice in Greece depends on political leadership.

2022 is also ending with a case that once again reveals the roots and ramifications of the corruption that has developed in Greece over decades and led to the financial crisis. By not bringing “foreign arbitrators” to Greece, the criminal systems of European countries such as Belgium have given us an enviable example that the discovery of a criminal is of paramount importance and that he will be brought to justice quickly and reliably, rather than the existence in the penal code of a draconian unenforceable or selective penal code, since in Belgium the penalties for the crimes in question are lighter than those they would face in Greece under the new penal code. If this case took place in Greece, evidence would eventually be sought, and in the meantime politicians, journalists and observers would be involved in journalistic processes, the facts would become the subject of a television penal code, seeking, wittingly or unwittingly, a helping hand to criminals.

Ministry of Justice and Government of N.D. they do not understand the deeper legal values ​​of our culture and lose sight of a real reform strategy focused on protecting the rights of citizens. If we exclude the reforms prepared during the SYRIZA-PS era, in particular the law on the Court of Accounts, no other “reform” can be satisfied not only by the leftist and progressive citizen, but even by the most staunch liberal supporter of the Court of Accounts. government. Not a new bankruptcy law leading to bankruptcy of individuals, nor a new “parent-centered” family law that replaced the old “child-centered” and led to a dead end in application and interpretation. The government allowed the justice system to sink for two years during the pandemic by not using the e-justice infrastructures it received, and very late announcing their expansion, which should have already been completed. By contradictory logic, despite being fortunate enough to receive the exceptional support of the Recovery Fund, he presented a plan for the reduction of administrative justice, he did not present any coherent plan for the judicial infrastructure and shirks responsibility by disagreeing with the proposal to create a committee of cross-party control over the funds of the Recovery Fund and NSFR.

The year 2022 was marked by human rights violations of historic proportions.

In addition, it is also ineffective in the management of the daily life of the courts, especially with the great problem of the shortage of judicial officials, in connection with which he did not publish any announcement of filling vacancies, but transferred the problem to the Greek kalends for the establishment of a training school by them, which postpones the solution of the problem even further into the past. In the country’s mortgage vaults, lawyers line up at dawn to act at a speed inversely proportional to demand in the real estate market. Options such as partial legislation on symbolic criminal law have been condemned in the courts, for example in relation to section 187 of the Criminal Code, which has led to long-term abstinence of lawyers, which, together with abstinence for delays in payment of legal aid – payments have ceased for the past three years — led to a quagmire of a lot of lawsuits, but even specific lawsuits that made us all aware.

All these are aspects of the judicial decline of the period 2019-2022. It is no coincidence that SYRIZA-P.S. speaks of “justice everywhere”. Justice is the measure of everything. First, an example of a democratic methodology will be given, which will restore its functioning through a national dialogue. From staffing, building infrastructure and expanding e-justice to fixing salaries and other injustices, especially to support young and practicing lawyers and women. From functioning of the Judicial and Bar Associations as institutional advisers to the Department of Justice, to shaping their opinion in the selection of the leadership of the courts, which will be rationalized in terms of the number of vice presidents. From actually checking judges with delay time statistics to refocusing the National School of Judges and connecting it to the social sciences and academic research. From the termination of opportunistic legislation with the establishment of permanent law-making committees, in which representatives of the collegiate bodies of the legal world will necessarily participate. From destroying the sense of impunity of the powerful, removing all criminal immunities passed in recent years, to repealing the bankruptcy code that favors foundations and targets the first house. Finally, with the satisfaction of mature social demands, such as the legalization of the term femicide and the establishment of marriage for all persons, regardless of their gender.

2023 will be the year of Justice and the restoration of the rule of law.

* Mr. Michalis Kalogirou is Director of the Political Office of the President of SYRIZA, former Minister of Justice.