A majority of the plenary session accepted the two requests of the prosecution authorities to lift the immunity of the President of the Electoral Platform for Freedom, Zoe Konstantopoulou. The first immunity request concerns a complaint filed by Health Minister Adonis Georgiades against Ms Konstantopoulou for slander. 162 Members voted in favour, 53 against and 13 Members voted ‘present’. The second request to waive immunity follows a lawsuit filed by two judicial officials for violation of personal data and disruption of service, at the court in Larissa. 177 MPs voted in favour of lifting immunity, 54 voted against and 13 MPs were present.
After the vote, Justice Minister Giorgos Florides commented that the president of the Electoral Alliance is charged with felonies involving a brutal violation of the most fundamental human and individual rights by illegally videotaping judicial officials and police officers and then publishing these videos on social networks. Soon the Parliament will be dealing with half of the Criminal Code, as far as Ms. Konstantopoulou’s actions and behaviors are concerned, Florides said.
Konstantopoulou commented on PASOK’s stance on the vote, saying: “You will be accompanied by what you did today. You joined forces with Floridis, who comes from your party and showed what a genius he is, who was pulled out of the scrap heap by Mitsotakis, and you joined forces with him just as Diamantopoulou is coming out of your party and saying that the opposition to the ND is until the elections, then we see, at the time when false prosecutions and targeting are being saved for the most annoying leader, at that time you abstained from voting on the Georgiades lawsuit. And you voted “yes” to waive the immunity of a political leader who defends parents and relatives against the judicial complex that led to the seized videos not being released to date. Really? Is this how you treat the role of the official opposition even though you have this role by carousing? Only Floridi’s minions denounced me, sworn judges and prosecutors themselves who bury all the cases. I am honored to be persecuted by a Floridian, name and thing.”
In the preceding debate, the President of the Electoral Alliance asked for the debate on the two requests for the waiver of her parliamentary immunity to be postponed and complained that extreme violations of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament had been committed and that the constitutional order had not been respected because, on the one hand, the debate on other requests for the waiver of immunity of other MPs who, for an unknown reason, had to be preceded by a debate on other… “kicked” by the Parliament, and on the other hand, it was called to the Ethics Committee before it was informed of the content of the files. Ms Konstantopoulou said that the lawsuit filed by the vice-president of the New Democracy, Adonis Georgiades, constitutes a “false file”, it is a lawsuit filed by Mr Georgiades on February 16, while her own lawsuit against him is earlier, filed on January 29, and yet it has not yet been forwarded or introduced for the House’s consideration. This lawsuit is invalid, the president of the Electoral Freedom Party said and denounced “a rigged immunity waiver procedure by a fascist.”
As for the substance, Zoe Konstantopoulou said that Mr. Georgiades wanted to get back at her when she accused him of trying to cover up the crime in “Violanda”, which “involves both the government and the sitting minister”, by stating in Parliament “I will sue you 15 times a week and put you in jail”, “after he had also previously stated that he has police friends who alert him to what is going on in police stations and how his political opponents are moving”. “The intention is to silence me, to silence me, for my role in corruption cases, whether it is the OPEKEPE case or the Tempi case or the wiretapping case,” she said.
As for the second request to lift her parliamentary immunity, the president of the Electoral Alliance said that “two sworn officials, named B.M. and M.H., were caught in breach of their duty in the trial, in connection with the videos, which were seized by her actions and those of her colleagues, while they had been in hiding for three years”. He added that on the day the copies were finally to be granted, “one judge, who was to grant the copies, fainted, was sick for a long time and the copies were not granted and then another judge M.H. was found who said that the copies would be granted and subsequently Judge B.M. told M.H. “why are you granting them?” and so she reversed the decision.” “These are judges who have been seen nationwide. Ms. M.H. reversed the grant of evidence, for the crime of Tempe. These judges, before they filed this suit against me, were denounced by four relatives. And I am the attorney for three of the four relatives. After that, Mr Florides, together with Mr Sevastidis, organized these judges to file lawsuits against me, other lawyers and the relatives, even lying that we occupied the place,” said the president of the Eleftheria Pleiades, noting that two police officers have testified under oath that there was no occupation of the place. She also denounced that the promoted judges included Mr Sevastidis and the “sworn” judge, who were used in this manipulation.
As for the position of the parties and the order in which they asked for the floor, the parliamentary representative of “Victory” Spyros Tsironis spoke about the use of institutions a la carte, about tactics to eliminate political opponents, sometimes through photographic amendments and sometimes through blatant accusations. In the first category, he even included the amendment for the suspension of the funding of the Spartans party, noting that if a similar embolism amendment had been passed after the murder of the teacher Nikos Tebonera, it would have been doubtful that there would be New Democracy MPs in the Parliament defending whether a party elected by the Greek people is entitled to state funding or not. “The question is rhetorical. New Democracy, in this case, could not even run a combination in a community in the prefecture of Achaia,” Tsironis said and addressed the majority, saying that they have the institutions a la carte. He also said that left-wing parties are also responsible for this situation because by voting to suspend the funding of the “Spartans”, they joined the zeal of New Democracy to eliminate from the political map anyone who deprives its party of even one vote. Tsironis addressed the majority side saying: “where does this political descent of yours really stop? “Victory” will never enter into games of petty political interests by insulting the institutions, regardless of ideological differences, whether it is with the “Spartans” or with the Eleftherias Plevisi. He also called for an end to the trivialisation of institutions and their instrumentalisation.
The parliamentary representative of the New Left, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, described as completely reasonable the arguments against the procedure, for the failure to meet the deadlines for summoning Ms Konstantopoulou to the Ethics Committee and for the invalid summons for three more cases pending after numerous lawsuits against her. On the substance, Mr.Tzanakopoulos said that both the parliamentary majority and the leadership of the Justice Ministry are operating with impermissible and anti-regime practices that aim to cultivate a climate of artificial parliamentary tension. The indignation against this tactic is justified, he said, and clarified that “this indignation does not only concern Mrs. Konstantopoulou but also any of these practices of political and criminal provocation, whether this provocation comes from Mr. Georgiades or Mr. Florides.” There has been an unprecedented rush on the part of the Justice Ministry, Mr. Tzanakopoulos said, to bring all the files here together and this tactic shows clear political expediency and that is why the requests must be rejected. He also said that there was a method to bring all the files concerning Mrs. Konstantopoulou together to the Parliament and behind these methods there is expediency, in each individual file and in all of them together. The political targeting, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said, is to create an impression for the president of the Eleftherias Alliance that she is a political and criminal agitator and in the context of this targeting, the judiciary itself and active judges are being instrumentalized, just as “Mr. Tzavellas to save members of the government from criminal liability”, as “Mr. Zisis and Ms. Adilini were instrumentalized.”
PASOK parliamentary representative Dimitris Mantzos said the procedure was problematic and raised serious procedural issues. As for the substance and the case coming from the Larissa court, Mantzos said his party has a view and a line that “what is consistent with parliamentary duties is subject to Article 62 of the Constitution and what is not consistent with parliamentary duties is beyond the provisions of Article 62 and must indeed be judged by independent and impartial Justice”. This, he stressed, is a position of principle, which does not change depending on the person, and it is a position that does not negate the harsh criticism of the leadership of the Justice Ministry and the leadership of the Judiciary, for its actions or omissions, for judgments that go against issues of the rule of law and the need for absolute investigation and disclosure of cases that affect the core of democracy, such as the case of wiretapping or the criminal accident in Tempe. Regarding the second complaint filed by Mr Georgiades, the PASOK MP said that “we have a continuous exchange of insults, lawsuits and, worse, insulting insults within the Parliament, repeatedly, serially and in a way that is almost prepared, almost prepared, to make communication, which trivialises parliamentary discourse”. Therefore, he informed, PASOK “will not take part in this malicious theatre.”
Syriza parliamentary spokesman Theofilos Xanthopoulos said that according to the Constitution, the MP is charged and goes to court, unless the Ethics Committee finds that the complaint, the charge, the confrontation is politically motivated and intended to harm him. “In this sense, the committee recommends on a case-by-case basis and the plenary judges. Therefore, because these are very serious cases that have to do with the credibility, personal and solvency of political discourse, the Plenary must be very careful what it decides,” Xanthopoulos said. He also added that there is a procedural issue because the president of the Electoral Alliance was not informed as she should have been and therefore it is wrong to introduce the two cases in plenary today because the formal requirements are not met.
KKE parliamentary representative Nikos Karathanasopoulos said that an industry of lawsuits is developing and an attempt is being made to turn the Parliament into a prosecutor’s office. He noted, however, that “there has been a bad situation with the heated, meaningless personal confrontations which maintain an artificial tension and the government majority is responsible, because even the non-observance of formal and procedural issues and timetables add fuel to the fire for such acute situations”. It is, as the KKE parliamentary representative noted, controversies that help the government because they distract from the key issues and disguise the character of the anti-people’s policy and the objectives of the government’s policy. “We will not take part in this game. We will not participate in the vote so that our stance is not misinterpreted,” he said.
Liberty Workers’ Party parliamentary spokeswoman Georgia Kefalas said there was political manipulation behind both the lawsuits and the procedure that brought the debate and vote on the requests for waiver of immunity to the plenary today. “It is absolutely obvious that there is political manipulation and that what is being sought is the punishment of a political leader, nothing different and nothing less is happening here today,” Kefalah said and commented on what Mantzos said, “really PASOK is extremely small and extremely little with what he said here today. Mr. Mantzos told us about the insulting name-calling that is heard in the Parliament, when the leader himself has been accused, of the same thing, when he called New Democracy a criminal organization, which in our opinion, he was right to say. And today PASOK has discovered the independent judiciary and that what has happened in the trial of the missing videos was something that should have happened as it did. In other words, the fact that the court suddenly reversed its decision is considered legitimate by PASOK.” There is clear targeting of Ms. Konstantopoulou and it is clearly political, said Georgia Kefala, adding that the KKE today also washes its hands in the face of this phenomenon.
The parliamentary representative of the New Democracy, Dimitris Kairidis, said that according to the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, the Plenary does not enter into the substance of the cases and any complaints and excuses will be analysed by Mrs Konstantopoulou in court, in the independent judiciary. “There she will defend herself, as any citizen and as our liberal culture, the rule of law requires. We cannot hold a trial here. We are obliged to impeach if the alleged offences do not fall within the sphere of parliamentary duties. It’s a simple matter. I would expect her to seek removal, as so many colleagues do, and want justice to be done and there to be no cover-up. And I would expect her to want the expediting,” said Mr. Kairidis, stressing that every politician should want to clear his or her name in the independent judiciary. “She chooses to hide. She while she wants the removal of all the others and has told us, repeatedly, that she does not want there to be, in principle, parliamentary immunity, comes here and hides and invents and procedural in a file which she received two months ago, which the whole country saw. The whole country saw on television news, images of shame, from the court in Larissa, “said Mr. Kairidis and added that the bailiffs of the Parliament were looking for days for Ms. Konstantopoulou to serve her with the file. “We have nothing against you. That is why we did not waive your immunity when a request came for obstruction of transport during the rural mobilisations. We concluded the majority that even at the extremes, this could be justified as political activity. But the alleged occupation of an office in a courthouse, the bashing of judges, the assault by dropping computers on the floor, chasing after files, locking judges in another office to protect themselves, and on top of that, the felony-level video taping-violation of privacy, that’s within your parliamentary duties, uh, that’s over the top. You were there and finally clarify your attributes because you can’t be a politician there and an advocate here! You were there as an advocate,” said the Southwest parliamentary representative and commented that for the first time a lawsuit is coming to Parliament from judges. “If we don’t want our courts to become a jungle where advocates chase judges, lock them up in their offices and don’t let them do their work, at the very least, we are obliged to vote for the removal,” Kairidis said.
As for the lawsuit filed by Adonis Georgiades, the ND parliamentary spokesman said that there was repeated slander, He called on her to withdraw her complaint, Mrs Konstantopoulou called him a ‘chicken’, she did not withdraw it, he filed a complaint, she filed a complaint, one case is going to court, the other case will go to court and… “chickens have rights.”
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