In a remarkably damning article entitled derisively “Greece ― the country that lets people escape justice”, international media outlet Politico highlights a series of judicial cases involving, as it claims, “botched investigations and cover-ups” that convey a general feeling of impunity among the populace.
The piece outlines three major cases that rocked Greek society, the verdicts of which in the country’s judicial system seriously breached the public’s trust in the judicial process and justice as a whole.
The Tempi crash in 2023, which claimed the lives of 57 people is one of the cases the article centers on. The other one is a shipwreck off Greece’s Peloponnesian coast last summer that left hundreds of Asian and African migrants presumed drowned.
Finally, the spyware scandal which came to be known as the “Predator scandal” due to the homonym spyware used. This directly embroiled the government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and other high-up officials, including the PM’s nephew and close aide and the former National Intelligence Service (EYP) head, both of which were compelled to resign after the scandal came to light. Last week, a Supreme Court prosecutor cleared the country’s politicians, police, and intelligence services of wrongdoing.
The article, penned by Nektaria Stamouli, quotes Andreas Pottakis, Greece’s ombudsman, an independent official who looks into state maladministration about the pervasive sense of injustice and a general inculpability: “There is a sense of a systematic and concerted effort to downplay certain incidents” he said. This breeds “suspicions of an attempted cover-up” and negligence that “could involve political leadership.”
Politico posits that in isolation these unfortunate incidents could have befallen many governments around the world and might have been dealt with. But the way the Greek authorities chose to handle them raises disturbing questions.
The prevalent sense of mistrust by the citizens toward the country’s Justice System was only compounded by the fact that opposition parties, groups formed by the victims’ families, and independent investigators making allegations of a cover-up.
In addition, witnesses were silenced; legal documents were ignored; and victims were sidelined. Parliamentary investigations have done nothing but muddy the waters, according to the Politico report.
According to a survey conducted on behalf of the Eteron Institute, marking the 50th anniversary of Greece’s return to democracy, only 29% of citizens trust the country’s justice system.
