A confrontation has taken place between the Ministry of Justice and the Greek Prosecutors Association concerning the forwarded bill for the reduction of prison overpopulation and the Type C prison abolishment.

The Greek Prosecutors Association disagrees with provisions that facilitate the release of many prisoners and favour the elderly, ill and underage prisoners, because their lenient treatment is not consistent with the seriousness of their offenses.

By criticizing the usual practice of forwarding occasional and fragmented regulations, the Association highlights that the problem of prison overpopulation cannot be solved with arbitrary legislative reduction of the imprisonment time and a general release of the convicted for all crimes with no exceptions and irrespective of the seriousness of the crime. That way we witness the deconstruction of the enforcement of fair punishment on the offender, who is rewarded in the end due to the state’s extreme inability to ensure the basic means and facilities to deal with criminality.   

Finally, under the presidency of K. Gavellas (Deputy Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Appeals), the Greek Prosecutors Association suggests that the without exemptions release of prisoners can raise the question of jeopardizing the public order and simultaneously reinforce the image of a state that operates inconsistently, self-repealingly and disrespectfully of its laws.

On the other hand, the Minister of Justice Nikos Paraskevopoulos while defending the bill underlined that “unilaterally punishing practices sound outdated and utterly dead end prejudices that do not suit the humanitarian state; therefore, taking a step back from them cannot be deemed as disrespectful towards the laws”.