While the Greek government may desire to expedite procedures for the judicial investigation of cases involving 13 New Democracy MPs referenced in the OPEKEPE files, and is preparing to bring legislation that would contribute to this direction so that “the country’s political life is not held hostage by ongoing judicial cases,” it remains doubtful whether this goal will be achieved.
Cases under European Public Prosecutor oversight have additional archival procedures
This is because, according to judicial sources, procedures even for the investigated MPs regarding misdemeanor cases are not expected to be completed before September-October. The first step to initiate the relevant procedures was taken today, with the lifting of immunity for the 11+2 New Democracy MPs referenced in the case files. For 11 of them, the file will be forwarded to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, and for the other two (Karamanlis and Athanassiou) to the Athens First Instance Prosecutor’s Office. The preliminary investigation will then continue and all will be called to provide explanations as suspects. According to provisions, they will receive deadlines, submit their explanations, their explanations will be evaluated, and a decision will be made whether their cases will be archived or prosecutions will be initiated.
The same judicial sources note that cases controlled by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office have an additional procedure for archival. “If Greek European Prosecutor P. Papandreou archives a case, the procedure doesn’t end there,” the same sources comment. This is because it is provided that the archived case will be forwarded to three different European Prosecutors in Luxembourg, and after they review it, they will return it to the Greek section of the Greek Prosecutor’s Office, with the final approval given by the appeals prosecutor’s office.
However, during today’s meeting between Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis and European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kövesi, the issue of accelerating procedures was raised, with the ministry’s political leadership informing Ms. Kövesi that it will bring provisions to expedite trials, and the European Chief Prosecutor agreeing that procedures need to be accelerated. Information indicates that Ms. Kövesi offered to send her own ideas that could be incorporated into the relevant regulation toward accelerating case trials.
