{"id":1098,"date":"2026-04-17T10:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=1098"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:07:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:07:00","slug":"makis-voridis-legally-untenable-immunity-waivers-for-opekepe-excessive-resignations-of-ministers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=1098","title":{"rendered":"Makis Voridis: Legally untenable immunity waivers for OPEKEPE &#8211; Excessive resignations of ministers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Faced with a &#8220;moral and political dilemma&#8221; as to whether to support the <b>waivers of immunity<\/b> for MPs in the <b>OPEKEPE<\/b> is <b>Makis Voridis<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>In his statements to Direct&#8217;s protothema and George Eugenides, The former minister argued that <b>the relevant dicographies lack a substantial legal basis<\/b>, while he described the resignations of government officials following their transmission as &#8220;excessive&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>As he said, &#8220;<b>I have a dilemma to vote for the waivers of immunity, they are completely legally untenable<\/b>&#8220;, noting that reading the files <b>&#8220;no acts justifying such heavy political consequences as seizures of ministers&#8221;.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Voridis insisted that in the case involving him <b>&#8220;there was no objective finding&#8221;<\/b>, calling on those criticising him to determine &#8220;what was his illegal behaviour&#8221;. &#8220;Someone needs to tell me what I did. Is there any damage to the state?&#8221; he said, stressing that political acts cannot be subject to criminal assessment.<\/p>\n<p>Referring to his resignation, as his name was included in the first OPEKEPE case, he clarified that he was not asked to resign, but he submitted it himself, as <b>&#8220;I cannot tolerate the slightest suspicion that I am using the power of the minister.&#8221; <\/b>At the same time, he noted that the Commission of Inquiry &#8220;did not reveal any illegal act&#8221; on his part.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on the resignations of other government officials following the OPEKEPE files, he referred to<b>&#8220;a process of automating resignations, even without any substantial content&#8221;<\/b>, adding that &#8220;there must be an evaluation and not automatic reactions&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She also placed particular emphasis on the role of Parliament, noting that MPs have &#8220;an obligation to individually review the files&#8221; and stressed that when a case involves the exercise of parliamentary duties &#8220;no criminal prosecution can be accepted&#8221;. <b>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to find myself accused because I forwarded a citizen&#8217;s request,&#8221;<\/b> he said.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, he warned that a generalised acceptance of requests to waive immunity would set a dangerous precedent: &#8220;If we vote for the lifting, we are essentially saying that with an email a member of parliament can be found accused.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Voridis also referred to the European Public Prosecutor&#8217;s Office&#8217;s files, noting that <b>criticism of them &#8220;does not constitute a denigration&#8221;,<\/b> while acknowledging that European prosecutors are &#8220;remarkable officials&#8221;, which &#8211; as he said &#8211; &#8220;makes the evaluation of cases even more demanding&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>On the political front, he <b>rejected scenarios of a rift between the Grand Maximus and the ND parliamentary group<\/b>, while leaving open the discussion of broader institutional changes, such as the possible incompatibility between ministerial and parliamentary status, saying that if this happens it would be a <b>&#8220;world-changing reform<\/b><\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Faced with a &#8220;moral and political dilemma&#8221; as to whether to support the lifting of the immunity of MPs in the case of OPEKEPE, Makis &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}