Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis commented on the decision by Supreme Court Prosecutor Konstantinos Tzavellas not to attend today’s session of the Institutions and Transparency Committee in Parliament, where the wiretapping case will be discussed. The minister spoke on Wednesday morning (20/5) on Parapolitika 90.1.
Read: Konstantinos Tzavellas: This is his letter refusing to appear in Parliament for the wiretapping case
The minister spoke on the show “Apenanti Mikrofona” with Sotiris Xenakis and Vasilis Skouris and initially referred to the European Prosecutor’s Office, discussing complete competencies, emphasizing that “There is no citizen who doesn’t want political cases to be quickly resolved. It’s important for citizens to know what’s happening. The criminal system has special provisions. For example, corruption crimes, regardless of who commits them, have priority. This concerns the functioning of democracy itself. The change in the criminal system, where we increased the number of judges, means we have acceleration. For example, we divided the Court of First Instance into criminal and civil divisions.”
Floridis on Parapolitika 90.1: PASOK’s “cunning” in calling Tzavellas, “constitutional deviation” to control judicial decisions
Subsequently, Giorgos Floridis, referring to PASOK and the summons of Supreme Court Prosecutor Konstantinos Tzavellas regarding the wiretapping case, spoke of a “cunning formulation.” As he noted among other things: “I don’t mince my words. I’ll speak about Tzavellas’ decision. Parliament’s regulations provide for summoning public officials with mandatory attendance. The same applies to judicial officials, without repeating the obligation. Now they thought to call the prosecutor who is leaving in a month, to discuss issues concerning Greek justice?”
He continued saying: “The prosecutor tells them it’s unconstitutional for one independent authority to call another independent authority to control it, asking why it made this decision.” And he added: “PASOK issues a statement that Tzavellas’ decision not to appear is indicative, that he cannot justify his decision not to retrieve the wiretapping case from the archives. They ‘nail’ themselves and admit: we don’t want to discuss justice issues, but we want to control you for making this decision.”
As the minister emphasized: “Here we’re not just talking about constitutional deviation, but I don’t know what else. It’s a complete deviation to want to control a judicial official for a decision he made. If some MPs don’t like the decisions, will they call judges to ask why? The prosecutor’s refusal is well-founded.”
“PASOK on a dead-end path”
Giorgos Floridis referred again to PASOK, emphasizing that “it’s on a dead-end path.” As he said, it’s a path: “Incompatible with the path of an official opposition party, or a party that governed for many years. It’s a party that doesn’t want to exercise its duties as a governing party. It doesn’t deal with people’s problems and doesn’t refer to solutions. This doesn’t suit such a historic party.”
Regarding Anna Diamantopoulou and her statements about an “open” possibility of cooperation with New Democracy, Giorgos Floridis said: “I can’t comment on that.” And he repeated regarding PASOK that: “The central problem is that it doesn’t behave as an official opposition party, with governing prospects. Tell me how you’ll do better, so I can trust you. When these are missing…”
Concluding, the Justice Minister said regarding PASOK president Nikos Androulakis that: “From polls it appears that Androulakis has half the approval from PASOK voters.”
