The “civil war” climate in the legal world is intensifying,in the wake of the decision by a slim majority of members of the Board of Athens Bar Association to call for the resignation of the prosecutor of the Aryonic Court for refusing to withdraw the case of circumvention from the file.

Although the majority of lawyers, unionists and militants, disagree with the impugned motion considering it extreme and for some “anti-establishment” calling it straightforward interference with the independence of the Judiciary, the same majority agrees with criticizing judicial decisions and judgments such as that of Mr. Javella,and expresses concern about the decision at issue, but that is as far as it goes.

The Plenary of the country’s Bar Associations and a portion of the members of the Athens Bar Association have taken this latter position, but they are now in conflict with the few who adhere to their extreme positions.

Conflict that is expected to intensify further from today, ahead of the press conference to be held by the majority of the Bar Association, maintaining a confrontation and a dispute that in substance, as legal and judicial sources commented, has nothing good to offer.

Anything else, they pointed out, harms the prestige of the Bar and the Judiciary, creates tensions and controversies that do not contribute to the effective addressing of problems, both in the field of Justice and in the field of lawyers.

The sobriety with which lawyers must approach issues concerning the rule of law is mentioned in speaking to “Manifesto”by Chrysoula Marinaki, a member of the ASA’s Board of Directors,who sided with the minority.

“When the Bar Association takes a position on issues concerning the rule of law, its approach must be sober, institutional and well-founded, without unnecessary crowns that probably have no practical effect, but deeply hurt the prestige of justice. In democracies there are no deadlocks and votes on any issue have majorities and minorities that must be accepted by all. Each side’s position must be respected by the other. Each board member is free to vote their conscience and obviously be subject to criticism. With a fresh mandate, after the recent election I know our priorities. The day-to-day practice of law is a priority, as there are so many issues facing our colleagues. Obviously, however, we must not turn a blind eye to social issues and rule of law issues without, in the end, sidelining the latter. History is written in the present, but recorded in the future.”

Fotis Giannoulas, a member of the IOA’s Board of Directors, sided with the minority, but recorded his concern about the decision of the Supreme Prosecutor, which, he said, is the point that unites all sides.

“What runs through all the individual proposals submitted to the Board for a vote and beyond the nuances of each of them, what is important to emphasize is that they are all driven by the same concern with regard to the attitude of the Supreme Court prosecutor not to withdraw the wiretapping case from the file and not to proceed even with further investigation of the case. This attitude of the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court unfortunately intensifies the suspicion of the citizens about the effective functioning of the institutions and is inconsistent with the nature of the case under investigation, which touches the core of a number of individual rights and ultimately democracy itself”.

The defending judicial officer Vassilis Markis gave his own perspective on Pavlos Tsimas’ show on SKAI radio on the criticism of Supreme Court prosecutor Konstantinos Tzavellas regarding the failure to withdraw the wiretapping case.

The honorary deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court and honorary president of the Union of Prosecutors stressed that in recent years we live in an era when judicial decisions are passed through the personal and political prism of each individual. Expressing his view on the merits of the case, he said that so far he has not read any serious legal criticism on the prosecutor’s order, which ruled on a purely criminal matter.

He went on to say that Mr. Tzavellas judged whether the evidence is sufficiently recent and whether it has been evaluated in the past and based on this data he made a decision which so far has not been judged legally, but only on political criteria by the opposition parties.