The constitutional challenge filed by SYRIZA and supported by PASOK and Course of Freedom regarding the restrictive provision on legal files fell flat. “The unconstitutional Article 18 blatantly violates the defendant’s right to a hearing,” stated Theofilos Xanthopoulos of SYRIZA while developing the request. He further emphasized that the legislation creates the possibility of excluding defendants’ access to part of the case file material, which violates the defendant’s right to a hearing in criminal trials, specifically Article 20 of the Constitution and the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the ECHR. SYRIZA describes this as an “inconceivable regime that prohibits defendants from accessing part of their case file. This prohibition constitutes a casus belli for the scientific community”.
Read: Floridis: Technical improvement coming to file restriction provision
Parliament: Constitutional challenge rejected
The constitutional challenge was rejected by the majority, with George Floridis stating that Greece complies with European law while including more guarantees for litigants compared to previous versions. As he emphasized, “this endless rights rhetoric is exhausted by the rights of murderers, indifferent to whether the lives of others who contribute to revealing the truth are endangered”. His statement that SYRIZA government’s first law was for “releasing criminals and murderers” provoked a strong reaction from Olga Gerovassili, who demanded it be struck from the record. She simultaneously called on Mr. Floridis to stop the provocative characterizations. “Under the Paraskevopoulos law, with Prime Minister Tsipras and Parliament President Zoe Konstantopoulou, all serious criminals were released,” the Justice Minister insisted.
