The 71 who signed for the preliminary committee on Papakonstantinou

Eight members of the government are among the 71 MPs who signed the prosecution proposal against former minister Yorgos Papakonstantinou. As usual, the name of the prime minister is not on the list and neither are those of the PASOK and DIMAR presidents, Evangelos Venizelos and Fotis Kouvelis respectively.

In particular, the government members that signed are Education minister Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos, Health minister Andreas Lykourentzos, Tourism minister Olga Kefaloyiannis, deputy Finance minister Christos Staikouras, government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou, deputy Administrative Reform minister Voloudakis Manousos, deputy Justice minister Konstantinos Karagounis and deputy Sports minister Yannis Ioannidis.

36 MPs signed from ND, including secretary Thanassis Bouras, parliamentarians Makis Voridis, Manolis Kefaloyiannis and Sophia Voultepsis, as well as Prokopis Pavlopoulos, Tasos Neratzis, Gerasimos Giakoumatos, Anna Karamanlis, Kostas Tasoulas.

22 MPs signed from PASOK such as Philippos Sachinidis, who had been deputy minister under Papakonstantinou, parliamentary group secretary Yannis Maniatis and parliament vice president Leonidas Grigorakos. Evangelos Venizelos, Yorgos Papandreou and Apostolos Kaklamanis did not sign because "of their institutional status" as they said.

Apart from president Fotis Kouvelis, Odysseas Voudouris and Paris Moutsinas from DIMAR did not sign either. The 2 MPs consistently diverge from the main party line and there are quite a few who are waiting to see if they will support any similar proposal by SYRIZA.

The proposal of the three parties will be discussed in the next fortnight in a special parliament session, which is expected to make a referral decision by secret ballot, since parliamentary circles believe the number of 151 MPs needed to proceed with the resolution of the case will certainly be exceeded.

 

Then, the preliminary examination committee will hear witnesses and issue a finding, whereby the committee members will be asked to decide on the major issue about the possible lapse of the former minister’s offenses

Based on the tri-party proposal, the committee will decide if the charges of document falsification attributed to the former minister «fall within his purview or not.» This decision is crucial for the continuation of the case, since if it decides that the offense did not occur during the performance of Papakonstantinou’s ministerial duties, but that as an individual he deleted the names of his relatives from the list to avoid a tax audit, then his trial will not occur within the settings under the law for the liability of ministers that are subject to a short lapse, and neither will he be tried by the Special Court, but under the provisions of ordinary criminal law.

According to information, Papakonstantinou is expected to return from Holland on Thursday.