For judges there was never a crisis, nor Memoranda

by Vasiliki Siouti

With the government’s and the Finance Ministry's relevant amendment, the salaries and pensions of judges have been returned to their pre-memorandum levels. Indeed they will even be compensated for all that was cut. After this the judges might well ask, “Crisis? What crisis?” and cut off from the rest of society, distance themselves even further from the Greek people’s sense of justice.

The amendment was to legislate for the ruling the judiciary made about themselves, when they decided that only cuts to their wages were illegal, while the rest were deemed legitimate.

Perhaps it doesn’t interest them, but from now on neither the loss of the judiciary’s prestige, nor the continually decreasing faith in the justice system in our country should come as any surprise to them.

Of course there is no doubt that all this happened in coordination with the government. For several months now in meetings between their union representatives and the Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras recommended that they just be patient, assuring them that the government would respond positively to their demands. This was in private, not public conversations, but it was ensured that all involved were well informed.

How random can it be considered that the government is now doing whatever it can to keep the judiciary happy? Obviously it is the only professional caste whose power they take into account. The only one they fear.

The next chapter will reveal whether the judiciary will turn its back on justice or move ahead, unaffected with judicial inquiries about all of the perjurers who robbed the wealth of the Greek people, and got rich off of their backs, condemning them to pay in blood for a crisis that they hadn’t provoked.

P.S. As is well known, the raises in the salaries of judges will also lead to raises in the salaries of MPs, given that the salaries of the latter are linked to those in the judiciary. By the ‘order of Samaras’  according to government propaganda, that won’t happen. The detail which is being kept quiet is that that won’t happen ‘now’. Because nothing is stopping it from happening a little later and indeed with all the lost wages recompensated.