The center-right Greek government this week appeared more attuned to public sentiment over the Tempi rail disaster, three days before several protest rallies are planned around the country on the two-year anniversary (Feb. 28, 2023) of the deadly two-train collision.

While public anger remains simmering over the rail crash, which claimed the lives of 57 people, many of whom were college students returning to Thessaloniki, the political opposition in the country has also seized the opportunity to hit the government.

Taking to news radio on Tuesday morning, Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis, among the more prominent members of PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ Cabinet, defended the independent judiciary as doing everything possible to investigate and send to trial the Tempi case.

Floridis, a former top minister in previous PASOK party governments and himself an attorney, said the case file has exceeded 50,000 pages and involves 40 individuals facing felony and misdemeanor charges.

Indicative of the often-creaky pace of court proceedings and the rendering of verdicts in the country, the appellate level trials related to the Mati wildfire deaths, reaching a shocking 102, that occurred in late July 2018 are only now being adjudicated.

“Exactly what type of cover-up are we, therefore, talking about,” Floridis said, during an appearance on a Skai radio current affairs program.

Greek Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis.

Asked about acerbic criticism, mostly by the political opposition and in ubiquitous social media posts, faced by Supreme Court top prosecutor Georgia Adilini, he said the latter’s appointment was ratified by four-fifths of Parliament deputies in 2023.

Floridis said Adelini’s primary intervention in the Tempi case was to send a directive last year to investigating magistrates – ones assigned the Tempi case – to examine every request related to the investigation.

In terms of the overall framework governing the independent judiciary in the country, Floridis said a law passed last May, whereby the plenum of the country’s high courts will convene to vote – via a secret ballot – for proposed candidates for top justices’ seats, will be implemented in June.

The list of proposed judge candidates will then be forwarded to the Cabinet for their final selection to the bench. He referred to “modern legislation that has earned kudos from Europe.”

Commenting on the mostly fractured opposition’s demand for the Mitsotakis government to step down, Floridis said “they are cunningly sticking to the idea of Mitsotakis leaving, with no one, however, raising a hand to say who they want to become prime minister.”

Finally, he reminded that in all major criminal and civil cases in the country an appellate investigator supervises the judicial investigation.