With improving changes announced by the Minister of Justice, Giorgos Floridis, and pledged to submit them tomorrow to the Plenary, where the two-day debate begins, the drafting of the bill for the new criminal code was completed in the competent committee of the Parliament.

In favor of the principle of the bill in the Committee, only the parliamentarians of the ND spoke, while all the opposition parties declared that they would vote against it, except for the Greek Solution which was reserved for the Plenary.

As both the Minister of Justice, Giorgos Floridis and the Deputy Minister of Justice, Ioannis Bougas, assured, the bill will incorporate other improvement proposals submitted by parties and competent bodies.

The Ministry of Justice, among other things, accepted the request of the Plenary Session of the Bar Associations, for changes in article 187 paragraph 6 of the new criminal code, which provided that those convicted even for a misdemeanor could be sent to prison without suspension of their sentence.

The lawyers had reacted and abstained for a year and a half from the trials for criminal organizations.

With the new amendment, it is now left to the discretion of the court to decide whether the sentence will have a deterrent effect, or the convicted person will be sent to prison.

“Our own narrative, the government’s, is that behind this legislative initiative lies absolute, absolute, correctness. We try to understand the real needs that exist, respond effectively, solve problems and improve the situation. We listen to all the proposals, we try to understand what exactly is happening and to provide fair solutions”, emphasized Mr. Floridis and added: “The political and ideological background that exists behind this bill is to provide solutions to society for security issues, of violence and the delivery of justice and whether or not we achieve our goal, society will judge it.”

For his part, the Deputy Minister of Justice Ioannis Bougas rejected, among other things, the accusations of the opposition that the prisons are already overloaded. As he said, “based on the EU data we have, it is reported that the number of prisoners in Greece for 2021 amounted to 11,030 prisoners which corresponds to 103 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, and is a number lower than the EU average”.

“In the Council of Europe, with a reference year of 2022, in our country we had 10,952 prisoners and 106 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants with an average of 104.2 prisoners in the countries of the Council of Europe,” he added.

He also rejected as completely unfounded the objections of the opposition for exterminating punitive sentences for minors, arguing that they are in no way threatened with deprivation of their freedom and that a sentence of imprisonment without parole is imposed only in serious cases.

“Strictening of penalties has been shown not to contribute to the fight against crime. On the contrary, it leads to the increase of criminal offenses and the overcrowding of the already overcrowded prisons, creating suffocating and shameful living conditions for the prisoners for which our country already has convictions”, argued, among others, the general rapporteur of SYRIZA – PS, Ioannis Sarakiotis .

The general rapporteur of PASOK, Milena Apostolaki, accused the government of “manifest hypocrisy”, arguing, among other things, that both its method and its motives are based on temporary relevance and the satisfaction of popular sentiment by violating the rights of the accused.

For unacceptable, anti-democratic and unconstitutional regulations, the special buyer of the KKE, Maria Komninaka, spoke, characterizing the abolition of the councils as extremely dangerous.

The special buyer of Hellenic Solution, Pavlos Sarakis, expressed his strong reaction to the abolition of the councils and the summoning of police and investigative officers, stressing that we will have cases that will fall into the audience’s funnel without distinguishing all crimes.

“The bill must be withdrawn because it is not fixed. It will create huge problems both at the level of the fair administration of justice and at the level of the living conditions of the convicted by the overflowing of the prisons”, said the expert buyer of the New Left, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos.

The expert buyer of the Spartans, Petros Dimitriadis, also appeared strongly critical, speaking of authoritarian and dangerous logics promoted by the government which do not create either the feeling of security in the citizens or the feeling of a fair trial being granted to the citizens.

Giorgos Apostolakis, special buyer of “NIKIS” called the claim that the direct call will speed up the decongestion and adjudication of criminal cases as weak and emphasized that the shrinking of judicial councils is unacceptable and violates the sense of justice and good legislation.

Elenis Karageorgopoulou, the special buyer of Plevsis Eleftheria, also requested the withdrawal of the bill, arguing that it contains unbalanced, unconstitutional, anti-democratic and dangerous provisions.

For his part, the general rapporteur of the ND, Panagiotis Kappatos, characterized the bill as “a particularly important and effective step to combat the sense of impunity, strengthen the security of society, but also the acceleration and quality upgrade of justice”.