The establishment of the judicial police is a demand of the legal world of the countryfor decades, the Minister of Justice, Giorgos Floridis, told the committee of the Parliament, where the discussion of the draft law to speed up the staffing and operation of the Judicial Police began today.

As the minister explained, Law 4963/2022 introduced a single recruitment process for both the police and civil sector personnel of the Judicial Police, which the Ministry of Justice was fully responsible for implementing. However, the uniform treatment of the two categories of personnel called into question the immediate completion of the Judicial Police staffing procedures due to practical difficulties (e.g. multiplicity of committees conducting the examinations) and their cumbersome nature. For this reason, said Mr. Floridis, the process of staffing the Judicial Police is being completely reformed. “In cooperation with the ASEP, an absolutely unbiased method is being introduced”, the Minister of Justice said and added that the recruitment of the civilian staff of the judicial police will also be completely transparent.

The Deputy Minister of Justice Ioannis Bougas informed the committee that as far as the police personnel are concerned at least three judicial police officers will be assigned to each First Instance Prosecutor’s Office in the country. The relevant Prosecutor of First Instance, if there is a need in the Magistrates’ Courts, but also in the Administrative Courts, will be able to dispose of the personnel of the Judicial Police, so that they can assist the Judicial Authorities of his district, whether it is about Civil, Criminal or Administrative Courts.

The civilian staff of the Judicial Police is structured into 19 Appellate Prosecutor’s Offices according to the scope of their responsibilities and the cases they handle. The Prosecutor of Appeals, based on the requests of the investigators as well as the Prosecutors of First Instance and depending on the cases he handles, will be able to assign the tasks clearly described in the draft law to the civil servants to assist the work of the judges.

“In the first phase of the implementation of the law, 150 civilian personnel will be recruited, there are 600 organic positions for police personnel, of which 500 positions will be filled“, said Mr. Bougas and pointed out that in this way a large number of police personnel will be released.

The Deputy Minister of Justice also informed that the Ministry is “currently preparing another important reform, the electronic service of indictments, which will also free the Greek Police personnel from additional duties in the area of ​​Justice”.

“We are coming to regulate the framework that will put the Judicial Police into operation, after the selection and training procedures of this personnel proceed very quickly”, said the rapporteur of the ND Dimitris Kouvelas and expressed the belief that this particular service will be a very important arm in assisting the work of judicial and prosecutorial authorities and in ensuring the proper functioning of judicial services.

The SYRIZA rapporteur Theofilos Xanthopoulos recalled that his party had recognized the necessity of establishing the judicial police and had voted in principle for the 2022 law. “We should make it clear in this room that the judicial police is not a security force, it is a personal uniform. It is not a service of ELAS, it is a service of the Ministry of Justice and its goal is to assist the functioning of the Justice”, said the SYRIZA rapporteur.

“The provisions that were passed a year ago, despite any disagreements about amendments that were expressed by the agencies, by the opposition, were they not so good after all? Were they not as correct, as good as you presented them to us at the time?”, PASOK’s special buyer Nadia Giannakopoulou asked for answers from the government, who raised the issue of a serious way of legislating. However, as PASOK’s special buyer clarified, “since the purpose of the bill seems to serve the better functioning of the judicial system, in principle her party agrees”.

“And with this bill, the special study of the government is proven – of course it is not far from previous ones – to strengthen and modernize one after another the repressive mechanisms of the bourgeois state”, said the special buyer of the KKE Maria Komninaka and added: “You strengthened the Municipal Police, the University Police, now the Judicial Police. Your woe is in fact, how and in every way you will strengthen a deeply class state, which is friendly, fast and efficient for big business interests. On the contrary, it is consciously indifferent to the real needs of workers.’

The special buyer of the Hellenic Solution, Pavlos Sarakis, described the Judicial Police as a necessary institution, who nevertheless complained: “The Judiciary cannot manage and deal with criminality in Greek society. Organized crime has become powerful, connected to political power and has immunity from justice. And why is this happening? Because, honorable colleagues, the Police Authorities have been corroded.”

“The previous law referred to a competition and in fact with a written and oral examination. Now, what has happened and what has changed, why are we going to partitioning?”, pointed out the specialist buyer of “Niki” Giorgos Rountas, who also asked for clarification as to why “there are no provisions anywhere in partitioning for three-child and multi-child” and why “the partitioning results from activities to which men respond better than women”.

“A Justice that operates within the framework of a favored rule of law does not need police protectors at all. In order for the administration of justice to be orderly and prompt by the judges, assistance in their work from the political department of the judicial police is required, assistance in the investigative work of the lower courts, in the conduct of investigations and preliminary examinations, and I do not see any mention of these in this bill,” said Eleni Karageorgopoulou, the special buyer of Plevsis Eleftherias.

“We see a sloppiness that is unjustified for such a serious matter”, said the special buyer of “Spartaton” Petros Dimitriadis and added: “Indeed, the Judicial Police has been a constant request for years by the bar associations. But we would like it to be done in a more transparent way, more meritocratic and, above all, for the Judicial Police to be a fighting body, to be staffed by executives who have the necessary training and not to be just an auxiliary body of the prosecutors at the level of the civil department or of the police at the level of the police department and I am very afraid that in the end it will become like the University Police”.