The prosecutor of the Supreme Court is now being criticized and attacked for doing the job he was assigned by approving requests from the relevant authorities.
The statement by a PASOK official that no evidence is needed to substantiate the allegations of pressure from Maximou to the prosecutor of the Supreme Court is possibly a continuation of the logic that prevailed during the period when SYRIZA and ANEL were governing the country, when the line was “send them to the prosecutor and let them prove that they are not guilty…”.
If one takes a step back and thinks about what that thinking actually means and combines it with the attacks that the Supreme Court prosecutor has been – and continues to be – attacked, one probably won’t feel much comfortable about the rationale that dominates the opposition parties, which as a whole denounce Constantine Tzavellas after his decision not to withdraw from the file the case of watching concluding that no new evidence has emerged.
He is now in the crosshairs of those who are politically invested in this matter and because he served as chief prosecutor at EYP and had signed legal endorsements following the letter of the law, something his predecessors and successors have done through specific procedures.
And it is also criticised that as a witness at the Commission of Inquiry that had been held, he did not say the reasons why the – we emphasise – legal attachments were made and that he invoked the confidentiality that resulted from his position.
In other words, the Supreme Court prosecutor is now being criticised and attacked for doing the job he was assigned and following the legal -that matters- chain of command by approving requests from the competent authorities.
And all of this has led to him being the focus of attacks from political parties and external actors along the lines of what the PASOK executive said, namely that no proof is needed, as long as the allegations exist, but they come from those who attack him.
Tragelaphos. Yes, it could be called that if things weren’t serious about the institution of justice, which is openly attacked. Suffice it to note that the Athens Bar Association called for the prosecutor’s resignation – provoking the reaction of the Union of Prosecutors – moving along the same lines.
A move unprecedented in the annals of time, considering that the association, not an individual lawyer, is raising an issue about a decision – on the merits – with which the representatives of the lawyers of Athens disagree or rather disagree, by a majority. We remain, however, on the “no evidence needed”.
Does this sound a bit like a beating? Does it, even worse, reminiscent of other times? Does it evoke popular courts or trials that took place in other times, in other countries, that even today some people admire? Because that was the rationale behind, for example, the Moscow Trials, or the trials that took place in authoritarian regimes. That evidence is not required, the surrounding atmosphere created by those who don’t need evidence is enough.
For better or worse – good for democracies, bad for other regimes – and evidence is needed to accuse someone and have that accusation confirmed. The theory of proving the one accused innocent rather than the one accused of any guilt only inspires terror.
*This article was published in the print edition of the Manifesto.
