“Prisons will fill up and we won’t be able to judge”

“Either the prisons will fill up or we will not be able to judge”.This was the message sent by the leadership of the Supreme Court to the minister of Justice, Miltiadis Papaioannou, and Elisavet Symeonidou-Kastanidi, the president of the committee that undertook the reform of the outdated penal code of the country after 61 years.

The entire leadership of the Supreme Court and many judges and lawyers who attended the presentation of the bill, expressed their objections to some changes in the penal code that will lead to extremism because they cannot be applied to everyday judicial practice, as they say. They also sounded the alarm about the impunity of those who have actually been sentenced to lengthy imprisonments.

Addressing  Mrs Symeonidou-Kastanidou, wife of former Justice minister Haris Kastanidis, the president of the Supreme Court Rena Asimakopoulou, who attended the presentation of the bill, spoke of the risk of filling up the prisons, because the promoted changes provide, for example, 1 month as a minimum punishment of imprisonment for simply insults, while so far the limit has only been 10 days.

Assimakopoulou noted that the problem is magnified because the new code provides for the abolition of the conversion of penalties to monetary ones. "We are going to fill up the prisons," she said, wondering whether a judge will be able to send a defendant to jail for a month for a simple insult.

The president of the Supreme Court described the establishment of a minimum of 1 month to impose a penalty cap as an "exaggeration" and as lawyers and attorneys agree, if it were ever implemented, it would result in more than half of the active population of Greece being locked behind bars.

Objections were also raised by the president of the Supreme Court against the imposition of a 15-year maximum sentence that may apply under the new penal code. As she said, this limit is "short" when in fact someone who is sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment may be released after serving only 3 to 4 years. Asimakopoulou asked that this limit be raised to at least 18 years.

Regarding the content of the new penal code, doubts were also expressed by Supreme Court prosecutor Ioannis Tentes, who attended the presentation of the bill, as well as the president of the Association of Judges and Prosecutors, Charalambos Athanassiou, and the president of the Association of Prosecutors of Greece, Roussos Papadakis.

The committee

It is worth noting that the majority of the members of the committee for the reform of the penal code consists of scholars and judicial officials from Thessaloniki.

Even though the bill was presented by the current leadership of the Justice ministry, “it will be the work of the next government”, Papaioannou said.