As Ms. Mundrow wrote in “K” a few months ago (“Giorgio’s Appeal to the European Court” 7.6.22), the adventures of the former head of ELSTAT, Andreas Georgiou, who applied to the European Court of Human Rights with a request for his acquittal and condemnation of Greece, turned into a court series. His application was accepted and the ECtHR has just acquitted Mr. Georgiou, holding that he did not receive a fair trial in Greece. As Ms Mandrow writes, “the Greek judiciary treated Andreas Georgiou with opportunistic criteria, not objectivity.”

But let’s start from the very beginning. Mr. Georgiou’s legal escapades began in 2011, when the political establishment was looking for a scapegoat for a deep recession and debt-crisis-driven spending cuts. He was accused of allegedly “inflating” the 2009 deficit, which allegedly led to painful measures, despite the fact that Mr. Georgiou took over as president of ELSTAT three months after signing the first memorandum in May 2010. He was initially acquitted. For example, Areios Pagos twice overturned his acquittal under various pretexts during the reign of SYRIZA. In 2019, he was finally acquitted on charges of willfully falsifying financial data. But two separate but related cases in which he was convicted remain pending: “dereliction of duty” and “mere defamation” cases.

In the first case, the Court of Appeal found him guilty of dereliction of duty because he did not seek the approval of the ELSTAT board before reporting revised financial figures for the period 2006-2009 to Eurostat in November 2010. He was unanimously acquitted by the court of first instance, but a few days later, even before the justification for the acquittal was published (!), an appeal was filed, as a result of which he was retried and sentenced to two years in prison with a suspension of a year suspended. His condemnation is contrary to the European Statistics Code of Good Practice (COP), which has already been incorporated into Greek law, according to which statistics is expressly the “sole responsibility” of the head of the statistical office (principle 1.4). Mr. Georgiou was convicted by the Court of Appeal on the basis of the ludicrous “one responsibility, another responsibility” argument. But if you are responsible, no one else can be held responsible! Statistics are not subject to a vote in any “competent” council. The Greek judiciary also ignored exculpatory evidence, such as letters sent by European officials, and tacitly refused to submit a preliminary question to the European Court of Justice about the correct interpretation of the Criminal Code. If he did, the council could not claim jurisdiction to convict Mr. Georgiou.

The Greek judiciary’s purported refusal to present a pre-trial question and the State Juridical Council’s barely convincing responses to the ECtHR’s question about whether Mr. Georgiou had a fair trial led to Mr. Georgiou’s acquittal. and condemnation of Greece. The question remains: how will Mr. Georgiou, who has already suffered 12 years of suffering in legal battles, be finally acquitted? Apparently, he will have to be tried a third time for dereliction of duty, as he was tried three times for allegedly “inflating” the budget deficit until he is acquitted. However, this also follows a second pending case.

In January 2023, the Supreme Court heard a motion by Mr. Georgiou to set aside a decision that found him guilty of insulting Mr. Nikolaos Stromblou, Director of National Accounts at ELSTAT (formerly ESYE) during the period 2006-2010 and a key witness for the prosecution in his The case is about allegedly “inflating” the deficit. In an attempt to protect the adjusted deficit figures for 2009 as required by EU statistical rules. (Principle 1.7 of the CPC), in 2014 Mr. Georgiou issued a press release in which he raised the reasonable question of how one could be held liable for data that Eurostat accepted in full, while the Court had never dealt with Greek the statistics he subsequently presented to Greece earlier. Although his name is not mentioned in the press release, Mr Strombolos sued for defamation and Mr Georgiou was eventually convicted of “mere” defamation, a crime under the Greek civil code that is the first in the world. for it punishes the one who damages the plaintiff’s reputation. to tell the truth. In January 2021, the Court of Appeal upheld the first instance decision, leaving Mr. Gheorghiu at risk of forfeiture of his property unless he pays a large monetary compensation for non-pecuniary damage. Most outrageously, the Greek government funded the legal costs of the plaintiff, Mr. Stromblou, under a law passed in 2017 as a memorandum of understanding to cover Mr. Georgiou’s legal costs, but left Mr. Georgiou to fend for himself because he was convicted! The decision of the Supreme Court is awaited.

The suffering that Mr. Georgiou has endured for 12 years now must finally end as soon as possible. The erosion of judicial independence in the case of Mr Georgios, as in other cases, proves the need for institutional reforms in the judiciary. If they are not implemented, Greece will be a big loser. Investors want assurance that the courts will enforce the agreements in a short amount of time. Before the election, Prime Minister Mr. Mitsotakis stated that “with the next New Democracy government, the judiciary will regain its constitutionally guaranteed independence, which is also at the heart of the rule of law.” The dismissal of Mr. Georgios is a necessary step to protect the rule of law and a necessary break with the evil past.

* Ms. Miranda Xafa is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Center for Human Research (KEFIM) and the author of the book “Public Debt” from the series “Little Introductions” by Papadopoulos Publications.