A person injured within the Tempe practice crash which killed 57 folks on February 28, 2023, has sued then-transport minister Kostas Karamanlis, including to an already heavy file of costs.
The findings of a parliamentary committee investigating the case, which led to every of the seven parliamentary events drafting its personal report, shall be mentioned in a plenary session Wednesday, and the Karamanlis file, submitted by judicial authorities to Parliament as a result of the costs are towards an officeholder, is definite to function prominently in what’s shaping as much as be an acrimonious debate.
The lawsuit towards Karamanlis, who resigned as a minister the day after the catastrophe, and was re-elected as MP a few months later, alleges manslaughter with doubtless intent, compromising the security of transport, leading to grievous bodily hurt and the hurt itself.
However a regulation on “ministerial accountability,” primarily based on Article 86 of the Structure, makes a prosecution impossible. Simply 30 MPs are wanted to file a movement to arrange a fact-finding committee; however the setup should be accepted by a easy majority within the 300-member chamber. And it seems at current unlikely that ruling New Democracy, which holds 158 seats, will vote for such a movement.
If, towards all odds, such a committee had been shaped and located that the costs have benefit, a particular parliamentary investigative committee would take over and advocate whether or not the accused officeholder could be prosecuted. Once more, a parliamentary vote is required and the case to be transferred to the Judicial Council, a panel of 5 senior judges who can then resolve both to dismiss the case or put the previous officeholder on trial earlier than a 13-member Particular Court docket made up of 13 judges – seven from the Supreme Court docket and 6 from the Council of State, the nation’s high administrative court docket, which decides whether or not legal guidelines are constitutional or not.
This sophisticated process, ostensibly designed to guard officeholders from fixed and frivolous litigation, has successfully shielded them from extra critical costs. The European Union’s chief prosecutor, Laura Kovesi, instructed Kathimerini in an interview that her workplace considers the regulation to be “in breach of EU laws and regulation,” stopping a full investigation. However altering the regulation would require a constitutional modification, a prolonged course of that should happen over two successive parliaments.
