“The goal is to significantly accelerate all procedures for delivering disciplinary justice, through the creation of essentially one large central disciplinary council. And of course, we should emphasize that, within the framework of reforming disciplinary law, refusal to undergo performance evaluation will now constitute a disciplinary offense and will be evaluated accordingly by the competent disciplinary council,” emphasized Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who chaired a meeting with the leadership of the Interior Ministry, during which the bill for reforming, simplifying, accelerating and tightening the administration of disciplinary justice in the public sector was presented, as part of the broader effort to upgrade state services.
The bill for disciplinary justice administration in the public sector
The bill, which was put to public consultation yesterday, provides for the replacement of existing first-instance disciplinary councils and the second-instance council with a new body, the Disciplinary Council for Public Sector Human Resources.
The new Council will be staffed by 50 specialized officials from the State Legal Council, who will deal exclusively and full-time with disciplinary law in the public sector. Currently, judges and members of the State Legal Council who have other primary occupations participate in the compositions of disciplinary bodies, a fact that is estimated to contribute to delays.
With the new system, it is estimated that most cases will be adjudicated within a few months, while today delays in the administration of disciplinary justice approach up to six years. Binding deadlines are provided for each stage of the disciplinary procedure and accountability for any unjustified delays.
The work of the new Council will be supported through further digitization of the disciplinary procedure, as a special application will be made available to it which will be connected to the public employee registry of the Ministry of Interior and to the “e-Peitharxika” database of the National Transparency Authority, which allows monitoring of each disciplinary case in real time. At the same time, it will be possible to conduct meetings via teleconference, while all documents will be served electronically.
The bill also brings tightening and modernization of the legal framework, as in the past cases of mild disciplinary sanctions had been identified at a time when criminal justice had reached much stricter decisions.
In this direction, the list of offenses is expanded, which will now include refusal of evaluation. In the penalties section, new sanctions are added, such as deprivation of salary scale increases and prohibition of exercising responsibility duties. Also, criminal offenses are provided that will constitute grounds for dismissal of those convicted from their service, such as computer fraud, certificate forgery, breach of trust and bribery.
The disciplinary plea bargaining solution
For the faster resolution of pending cases, the solution of disciplinary plea bargaining is also established. The new institution will allow defendants to accept what is attributed to them in exchange for a milder penalty. Cases where there is a possibility of definitive dismissal of the employee cannot be subject to disciplinary plea bargaining, nor cases where the state has suffered financial damage.
The new Council will judge the most serious disciplinary cases in five-member compositions. Less serious offenses will be evaluated by three-member committees.
The bill will be voted on at the end of July and will be implemented immediately after.
During the meeting it was noted that since 2019, 1,155 employees have been permanently dismissed from the public sector, as efforts to deal with perjurers were intensified, while conversely, with the separate mechanism of evaluation and productivity bonuses, procedures and incentives have been institutionalized to reward the most productive and strengthen the weak.
Mitsotakis: Refusal of evaluation will constitute a disciplinary offense
During the meeting, the Prime Minister noted: “The reform of disciplinary law had occupied me since the time I was Minister of Administrative Reform, when the first systematic efforts were made for faster administration of disciplinary justice. And the time has come to take a significant step forward, which I believe is achieved with the bill we have put to public consultation and which will have become state law by the end of July.
The purpose is the significant acceleration of all procedures for the delivery of disciplinary justice, through the creation of essentially one large central disciplinary council.
And of course, we should emphasize that, within the framework of reforming disciplinary law, refusal of evaluation will now constitute a disciplinary offense and will be evaluated accordingly by the competent disciplinary council.
This is yet another effort we are making, within the framework of the major reform concerning the accountability of the broader public sector, to be able to modernize procedures so that disciplinary-controlled public employees can close their pending cases within a few months and not within many years, as unfortunately happens until today, where we had various absurdities: public employees who have been criminally convicted for very serious offenses, disciplinary councils essentially deciding that they should get away with a simple “slap on the wrist”.
The time has come to leave these definitively and irrevocably behind us.”
Theodoros Livanios: We are attempting a comprehensive reform of procedures and the way disciplinary justice is administered
Interior Minister Theodoros Livanios stated: “With the bill for the reform of disciplinary law, which was put to public consultation yesterday and will be in public consultation until July 21, we are attempting a comprehensive reform of procedures and the way disciplinary justice is administered, with the goal of faster delivery, so that both the service where an employee works benefits, as well as the employee himself, who will not be before the disciplinary council for a long period of time.
We are making a systematic fight to strengthen the public sector with specific actions. The disciplinary councils, as they functioned until today, had long response times, which in many cases reached six years and possibly in some cases exceeded them, and we want to continue with the evaluation of the public sector, improving the services provided by public employees to citizens.
And let us say that from 2019 to today, 1,155 public employees were dismissed from the public sector, either due to false documents for hiring or due to specific disciplinary offenses. The times these disciplinary procedures took were long, they were completed, but we want to accelerate them further, so as to give the sense of justice and in this way reward capable and worthy public employees.”
The meeting was also attended by State Minister Akis Skertsos, Deputy Interior Ministers Vassilis Spanakis and Vivi Charalampogiannis, and the Prime Minister’s General Secretary Stelios Koutantzis.
