Editorial Ta Nea: Judgment

Shortly after coming to power in January, 2015, the prime minister offered assurances in parliament that the government is every word of the Constitution.

Since then, it has been proven that this was yet another hollow pledge.

The government’s handling of the Novartis affair, with interventions and manipulation, bears witness to the fact that the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks government circumvented not only the laws and the Constitution, but also fundamental principles of representative democracy, such as the separation of powers.

The alarm bells in the statement of Greece’s Association of Judges and Prosecutors do not express merely a concern, but also a grim reality.

The Novartis pharmaceutical scandal reveals a gloomy situation, the likes of which the country has never experienced in the post-junta era.

Never since the fall of the seven-year dictatorship, in 1974, have the institutions of democracy been exposed to such strong pressures from the executive.

The attacks of a minister on the judiciary demonstrate that he lacks democratic culture.

Yet, that lack of democratic culture does not concern only the person unleashing the attack, when the entire government of which he is a member remains silent.

Does the prime minister, who holds the second-ranking office in the state, approve of these attacks?

Does the President of the Republic, who is the symbol of the unity of the nation and of the safeguarding of the Constitution, approve?

What is certain is that the judiciary, which is the guardian of the rule of law, will rise to the occasion.

The judiciary will judge without bending to the threats of the executive power, and it will judge even its own functionaries who may have betrayed their mission.

After that comes the judgment of history.