Statute of limitations for politician offenses, just like for citizens

While the judicial council determines that the offence of breach of faith for three former ministers of the ND government regarding their involvement in the Vatopedi scandal has expired, the ministry of Justice has disclosed the changes it will institute to the law for ministerial accountability.

According to the bill presented by minister Haris Kastanidis, all offence limitations regarding politicians are eliminated. Thus, the statute of limitations for ministerial offences becomes the same as that of ordinary citizens.

Of course, the limitation period provided by article 86 of the Constitution cannot change for the time being.

Through this development, politician offenses expire in 5 years and felonies in 15 years.

Restrictive terms

With this law, restrictive terms are imposed upon politicians, such as arrest warrant issuing, forced arraignments, arrests, temporary detention and bans on exiting the country. Until today, political figures could not receive restrictive terms even if a special court were introduced.

From now on, these terms can be imposed from the time the parliament will prosecute and the judicial council will carry out the process.

Furthermore, the compulsory seizure of the financial assets of political figures is legislated if it is relevant to the ongoing investigation. In this case, the seizure of funds is ordered.

Significant changes will also occur in the status quo by the creation of an Advisory Board which will consist of a deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court and two appeals prosecutors.

The Board will review the legal elements within the files transferred to parliament and advise on whether to investigate possible criminal lability of ministers. This way, the files arriving in parliament will be «filtered» and the delegates will have the first evidence of probability of criminal responsibility of ministers.

It must be noted that the findings of the parliamentary committee of inquiry will take precedence over the opinion of the three-member judicial council.

Freezing of accounts

Finally, there will also be a provision for the freezing of bank accounts of political persons that are being prosecuted for felony-level offenses. This will happen only in cases of a suspected offence such as money laundering.

«This is a serious set of interventions by PASOK, which will contribute to revealing the truth and satisfy the citizens that after all there is punishment for politicians who have committed crimes».

As Kastanidis also noted, the changes in the law of ministerial accountability are giving an idea as to the direction the constitution will move in during the 2013 revision.