When the current President of the Supreme Court, Maria Georgiou, took over as President of the Supreme Court, she immediately announced that judges who do not work, causing damage to citizens and a blow to the institution, should be removed from the judiciary.

More than a year later, 22 judges, including four prosecutors, were dismissed by the Plenum of the Supreme Court. The common denominator of the layoffs was inconsistency with the job, not other disciplinary offenses. Individual judges had time, if not years, to respond to their duties and make decisions.

The number of judges dismissed is unprecedented, as the tactics that have been used in the judiciary for years have been constant, resulting in inadequate ones remaining in their positions, not being removed, in honor of the shop logic. What is really surprising is not only the large number of judges fired, but also the fact that they remained in the judiciary for years and received a salary. According to judicial sources, there are still dozens of judges who do not respond to their duties, provoking, among other things, their many colleagues who honestly try, often in adverse conditions, to judge and make decisions.

In addition, judges who have cases in their hands for months, or even years, have a lot of convictions in the form of sentences to suspension or deprivation of wages (recently this has also begun to be applied).

An example is the case of a judge who was transferred to Thrace from Crete, where he demonstrated a long delay in his work. As a result, due to the large number of cases that he did not process in his new position, many of his colleagues refuse to transfer to Thrace, fearing that at some point they will pay for the broken ones, taking it upon themselves to clear the backlog of court cases. Recall that the judge in question was recently brought to disciplinary responsibility and was punished only with a reprimand.

To understand the magnitude of the problem of the existence of unsuitable officials, even if they are in the minority, it is enough to look at the recent decisions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court, by which some of them were dismissed.

• Dismissed judge of first instance, had cases on which he had not ruled ten years later – since 2012 and was dismissed in 2022. He has five disciplinary convictions (for temporary deferrals), while 400 cases were removed from him, which he had not processed.

• Another judge had 86 case files that he had not ruled on since 2018, i.e. for five whole years.

• The judge who worked in the Peloponnesian court kept the case file in her desk drawer for years, did not hand it over to her, even to another judge, for consideration, as a result of which her superior filed a criminal case against her.

• The chairman of the first instance was dismissed for long delays in issuing decisions, which also led to the imposition of statutes of limitations for offences. On his account, before his dismissal, 26 disciplinary proceedings and 23 disciplinary convictions with a temporary suspension (!).

• The judge working in Samos lost the case file and included arguments from another unrelated decision in the labor dispute decision. He had a portfolio of 40 to 250 cases every year while he served on Ikaria, he had cases in a drawer for four years!

• The dismissed prosecutor of the first instance has 22 disciplinary sanctions against him, disciplinary convictions, monetary fines, reprimands, etc. continuously since 2007, i.e. for 16 whole years.

• The decisions of the other judge, who was also fired, resembled telegrams. Only three arads. No justification, no justification Solutions that are not called solutions…

But what made the chairman of the Supreme Court begin the process of dismissing so many judges, and in fact, convening a weighty judicial formation, such as the Plenum of the Supreme Court?

“Let’s Do Our Duty”

According to “K” from the Supreme Court, Ms. Maria Georgiou decided to stop the trade union logic in order to cover up the lack of judges. Since taking over as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he has come face to face with appeals from citizens who have been waiting for years for a decision, as well as decisions from the European Court of Human Rights condemning Greece.

The decision of the President of the Supreme Court was fully supported by the Prosecutors of the Supreme Court Vasilios Pliotas and Isidoros Dogiakos, as well as by the overwhelming majority of the Chief Justices. It is no coincidence that almost all dismissal decisions were made by an overwhelming majority of votes. Many in the judiciary see dismissals as communicative management as a real issue, a complex one, it is true, regarding the delay in the administration of justice.

However, the Chairman of the Supreme Court also pointed out at the plenary session the consequences of a long delay for the defendants. “Do you know what the citizens who came to you for justice went through when they are waiting and waiting for your decision? Let everyone take their share of the responsibility. And we, the judges, are obliged to administer justice correctly and quickly. The rest for the functioning of justice is the duty of the state. Let’s do our duty,” was one of Ms. Georgiou’s many positions at the plenary session.

New ranking system from September

The competent, the excellent, the mediocre and the unfit have all made it into the judicial yearbook so far. This was the norm in measuring the performance of Themis functionaries.

The current government has recently adopted a new law on the evaluation of the judiciary, which will come into force from the next judicial year, from September next year. The new regulation attempts to strengthen disciplinary control, appointing two inspectors instead of the one that was until now, with a term of two years instead of one, and for evaluating judges there are essential criteria to climb the ladder of the judicial calendar. However, what is important for the implementation of the new law is the “change of mentality”, as Deputy Prime Minister Panagiotis Pikrammenos usually emphasizes, and the President of the Supreme Court emphatically states: “Sympathy and work”!

Numbers

10 yearssince 2012 he had in his cases the first trial with 5 disciplinary convictions.

86 cases closed … five years waiting for the decision of a certain judge.

26 disciplinary lawsuits and 23 suspended sentences were handed down on the President of the First Instance for delays in the administration of justice, which caused the statute of limitations to expire.