With the Minister of Justice, Giorgos Floridis, characterizing “important many of the proposals submitted by all the parties” and assuring that” the leadership of the Ministry will take them seriously and proceed with improving changes, it started in the competent Committee of Parliament, the processing of the bill entitled “Strengthening of legal matter, Arrangements for legacies, acceptances and disclaimers of legacies, registrations and eliminations of consensual mortgage notes and affidavits and for the Fund for Financing Court Buildings and the payment of legal cases help”.

The first draft of the bill, at the level of general rapporteurs and special purchasers, was carried out in a consensual atmosphere, with broad acceptance by the Opposition parties, although there were also serious reservations and objections to certain provisions.

The debate was opened by the general rapporteur of the ND, Tasos Bartzokas, characterizing the bill as “an important link to speed up the justice delivery procedures, to overcome the bureaucratic pathologies and to build a modern state”.

As Mr. Bartzokas said, it is a bill that has three objectives:

– The decongestion of the country’s courts and by extension the assistance in the effort made at all levels to speed up justice,

– strengthening the material of lawyers and

– the best, most direct and fastest processing of cases for all citizens and always with legal certainty.

Mr. Bartzokas emphasized the provision “which, for the first time after many years, strengthens the law material by increasing the actions that lawyers can perform”, as he characteristically said.

“This is a completely conscious choice by the Ministry of Justice, recognizing in practice the role of the lawyer and highlighting the trust of the state and society in Greek lawyers as collaborators of justice,” said the general rapporteur of the ND.

He also called “very important the provision that comes to provide a solution to the accumulated problems that had been created by the long delays in the settlement of the due compensations for the provision of legal assistance from the Court Buildings Financing Fund”.

“It closes immediately and permanently any financial pending that concerns the years up to 2022 but also 2023. But the main thing is that there is a plan and an intensive effort to provide a definitive solution to the way in which the compensations are settled”, he said and concluded:

“Unhindered access to justice for all citizens is a key pillar of our democracy, so it is critical that it functions properly without obstruction.”

The general rapporteur of SYRIZA, Kostas Barkas, appeared supportive of the bill, noting, however, that “the government is coming to gild the pill in the country’s legal community after the strong reactions it expressed against the leveling measures it had implemented with its other bills”.

At the same time, he pointed out “the danger of the bill being the trigger of a judicial Kallikratis”, stressing that “these interventions create questions and concerns as there is no plan to upgrade the courts, both in terms of logistics and executive staff”.

He also agreed with the articles “which provide a solution to the dramatic delays that existed for lawyers’ fees”, while he proposed “to finance, through the Recovery Fund, training seminars for lawyers on the legal matter that will be shouldered, without burdening the bar associations ».

The general rapporteur of PASOK-KINAL, Milena Apostolaki, also expressed a positive view of the bill, placing it “in the framework of good legislation” and pointing out that “the common ground of all is the faster and more efficient delivery of justice”.

“It is known that there is a problem with regard to the delay in the administration of justice in our country. According to the annual report of the World Bank for 2020, our country was in 146th place in terms of the average resolution of disputes in the courts, which amounts to 4.5 years”, he noted.

“Faster administration of justice is not only linked to legal certainty, but is also an important condition for attracting investment”, he added.

Mrs. Apostolaki also called “positive and very important the arrangements for the strengthening of the lawyer’s material with the condition, however, that there will be safety nets for the material that will be removed by the judges”.

He also emphasized the training of lawyers for the new legal matter, while he emphasized the need for clear formalities regarding the conditions, terms, times and method of payment of their fees for legal assistance.

The KKE’s special buyer, Maria Komninaka, moved in the opposite direction, arguing that this bill is another step in the privatization of justice.”

At the same time, he accused the government of “hypocrisy”, stressing that “it is not interested in speeding up the delivery of justice in favor of the popular social strata but is in favor of business groups for quick privileged adjudication of their cases”.

“He hypocritically appears sensitive and magnanimous, in the face of the economic suffocation to which he led the lawyers, offering them bribes and seeking to soften their justified reactions and succeed in subduing their struggles through a roundabout way,” said Mrs. Komninaka.

She also expressed her opposition to the issue of probate, stressing that “it must be exclusively assigned to judges who have the training and legal guarantees and if she wants to strengthen the lawyers, she should support them with substantial measures and not try to deceive them them dangerous cheeses”.

The special buyer of the Hellenic Solution, Pavlos Sarakis, expressed reservations, noting that “many of its provisions are positive and important, however some are incomplete and pose risks”.

“Its arrangements are permeated with terms of communication policy, rather than with the real will to strengthen the institutional role of lawyers”, he noted while expressing serious reservations about the provision regarding the issuance of a will.

“First you disparage the lawyers and then you offer them a piece of paper and wait for them to say thank you”, said Mr. Sarakis, requesting, among other things, that the representation of lawyers be mandatory in sales.

Strong reservations about the government’s motives were expressed by the New Left’s expert buyer, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, stressing that “the bill has problematic points while it comes late and at a time when there is a strong conflict with the legal community.”

As he argued, the government’s legislative initiative is related to the new judicial map, as under the pretext of decongesting the courts, it will proceed with their abolitions and mergers and will assign legal material to lawyers, in which case great problems and reactions will be created.

“The attempt to deal with the lawyers opens very dangerous paths and portends bad interventions to privatize certain aspects of judicial powers surrounded by independence. There is a huge reservation about the intentions of the government and about whether we want to keep the Greek judiciary independent and public at its core”, said Mr. Tzanakopoulos.

The expert buyer of the Spartans, Petros Dimitriadis, called it “hypocrisy the increase of the lawyers’ material without their mandatory representation in the buying and selling”.

“The government does little to support the requests of the lawyers, while in fact it will serve large legal firms that have specialized staff,” he said.

He also argued that “in inheritance offices, the role of the judge is being replaced by lawyers and this entails risks as some will not have the legal experience and competence” and stressed that it is necessary to train them with special seminars.

“Although there is a positive direction, the goal of the bill falls into the void due to a lack of staff”, noted Mr. Dimitriadis.

Credit to the leadership of the Ministry of Justice was given by the expert buyer of “NIKIS”, Tasos Oikonomopoulos, pointing out that “the bill is in the right direction and it was a constant request to transfer the legal matter to the lawyers”.

He also characterized, “a critical point about which we must be very careful, the affidavits and the way they will be filed”, while he suggested, in the pre-notes, to provide for checks on the titles and in the contracts that the representation of a lawyer be mandatory.

The special buyer of Plefsis Eleftherias, Eleni Karageorgopoulou, spoke of negative as well as positive provisions while she expressed her opposition to inheritance acceptance acts stressing that “notaries are the only guarantors of the process”.

“The question that arises is why should the government short-sightedly legislate in the service of a guild group when it will create bigger problems and confusion?”

The representation of the lawyer does not solve the problems because they cannot, they do not have the responsibility, they do not know how to check the titles. It is problematic to entrust it to those who do not have the knowledge. Do not create problems on citizen’s property. This provision is dangerous for the legal order”, argued Ms. Karageorgopoulou and concluded:

“The loss of material by the notaries, mainly in the region, will also signal the closing of their offices.”