Shock Parliamentary shutdown appears intended to save Venizelos’s skin

By Gerasimos Livitsanos

The submission to parliament of court documents regarding the scandal over the purchase of four submarines reveal much about the government’s move to shut down the plenary session of parliament on the 4th of June. The case-file was submitted together with a request to investigate potential criminal responsibilities on the part of Evangelos Venizelos (as former Defence Minister) and Giorgos Papaconstantinou (as former Finance Minister).

The casefile which was finally submitted today (Wednesday 18/6) to the competent offices of parliament appears to have been received by the General Secretary of Parliament on the 4th of June – that is exactly the same day that the Presidential Decree was posted on the doors of parliament announcing the end of the session. That is clear from the protocol number from the receipt of the casefile (A.P. 1684) dated 4/6/2014.

In the absence of other convincing explanations on the part of the government, the logical conclusion is that parliament was shut in order to avoid criminal prosecution of the two ministers due to the charges being dismissed. As is well known, charges of violations of the law ‘regarding ministerial responsibilities’ are automatically dismissed after the completion of two parliamentary sessions!

In practice this means that even if the law is followed to the letter following the submission of the casefile, even if an investigating committee is established and even if that committee decides to launch a criminal investigation, it is impossible for the two ministers to find themselves in the dock. This is because, according to procedures as they stand, the case must be deffered to the competent judicial council which is required by law to accept the dismissal of the charges and rule against the case being tried.

As far as the court documents are concerned the relevant deputy prosecutors, Antonis Eleftherianos and Popi Papandreou, note that the casefile was assembled “based on the transcripts of the 18-12-2013 Plenary Session of parliament for the case of the submarines and Scaramangas shipyard, following the attached documents.”

It is also noted that, “from the preliminary investigation which was conducted evidence emerged regarding the potential criminal responsibility of ministers – members of the government and specifically Evangelos Venizelos, former Minister of Defence and Giorgos Papaconstantinou, former Minister of Finance from the date of 17/10/2010, onwards.

The court documents provoked an angry response from PASOK. The party released a statement maintaining that neither the two deputy prosecutors nor any prosecutor’s office “had the competency to conduct whatever supposed preliminary investigation, not to mention proceed with any sort of evaluation.” This is because the evidence they relied on came from the record of the meeting of the competent committee of parliament.

PASOK has gone so far as to effectively… threaten the two deputy prosecutors stating that, “the Prosecutor of the Supreme court, we are certain, will investigate [their] unconstitutional and illegal maneuver which was intended to create fleeting impressions.”