Greek Court Rules that Key Austerity Measures Violate the Greek Constitution

gavel (Photo credit: s_falkow)

Greece’s Court of Auditors declared “unconstitutional” on Oct. 31 the planned pension cuts, the scrapping of Christmas, Eastern and vacation bonuses, the decrease of jobless allowances for seasonal workers, the increase in retirement age, etc. The majority of the 30 judges, who examine bills before they are submitted to Parliament, ruled that such cuts are contrary to Articles 2, 4, 22 and 25 of the Constitution as they conflict with the Constitutional obligation to respect and protect human dignity, the principles of equality, proportionality and the protection of labor.

While the ruling is not binding on the Greek government, it does open the way for the filing of legal complaints. This is the first such decision made by the Court of Auditors since the country signed the brutal EU bailout agreement, and it was handed down one week before the proposed legislation comes up for a vote in the parliament. It also serves to vindicate arguments made by Greece’s foremost constitutional law expert, Professor George Kassimatis, who is also a close collaborator of Greek composer and resistance fighter, Mikis Theodorakis.

The judgment will without doubt be taken up in court by the trade unions as well as the parliamentary opposition. In fact, the public and private sector unions, ADEDY and GSEE, is holding yet another 48-hour general strike on Nov. 6 and 7.

During the week of Oct. 21 Strategic Alert co-editor Dean Andromidas and Andrea Andromidas were in Greece for meetings with leading politicians, economists, political functionaries, government officials, journalists and retired military officers. They found tremendous interest and concern on a number of issues: LaRouche’s warnings of the danger of thermonuclear war, the need to dump President Obama, implementation of emergency financial reform to separate banks into commercial and investment banking under the principles of the Glass-Steagall Act, and the LaRouche movement’s alternative for the economic development of the Mediterranean.

The Andromidas also had the opportunity to meet with the leader of the “Gang of the drachma”, economist and former parliamentarian Theodore Katsanevas, who is one of the most outspoken advocates of Greece winning back national sovereignty by dumping the euro and returning to the drachma.

“This is the worst period in Greece, its like the German occupation all over again,” he said, adding that to be against the euro opens one to massive attacks by the media and the political class. One is either branded a lunatic because leaving the euro (according to them) would throw Greece into the abyss, or a member of a mafia of rich Greeks with huge Swiss bank accounts, who are eager buy up everything in Greece when it returns to the drachma. Katsanevas’ new book on exiting the euro, just released the week we were there, sold 5,000 copies basically at once. His plan calls for exiting the euro, reinstating the drachma, reducing through bilateral negotiations the value of the debt to 30% with a 2 year moratorium on debt payments, government controls over speculation, etc.

These are steps that any “normal” sovereign state would implement within the rights of their national constitution, but that are expressly forbidden under European imperial euro system.

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