How do we judge Justice?

In astir each sentiment polls and successful a caller Eurostat survey (fall 2025) we observe something very worrying: Greeks trust the justness system little than different Europeans. The reasons are galore and successful some cases unfair. The causes of distrust are often not owed to system itself, but to the inability of galore radical to understand the way successful which it operates.

However, particularly for the Greek justness system, there are different causes that should interest us. The astir important has to bash with a home organization shortfall: the Greek Constitution and law signifier bash not afloat guarantee the independency of the justness system. The organization model does not minimize the incentives and opportunities to workout undue governmental influence. This occupation has galore aspects, but it tin beryllium enactment simply: How casual is it for a justice – successful immoderate country, adjacent successful wide democracies – to contented a determination that will displease the government? The judiciary is truly autarkic when we spot that it does not hesitate, when necessary, to clash with the enforcement subdivision to support the Constitution, the regularisation of law, rights and idiosyncratic freedoms. The Greek judiciary should besides beryllium judged chiefly by this criterion.

If there is simply a deficiency of trust today, the judiciary itself bears large responsibility. Because successful a bid of decisions which successful galore cases had governmental implications, it has caused tenable concern. Let us look astatine the caller determination of the authoritative of the Supreme Court not to reexamine the wiretapping scandal, arguing that nary caller grounds has emerged that would warrant reopening the case. The Single-Member Misdemeanor Court of Athens where the wiretapping lawsuit was tried, had sent the lawsuit record backmost to the prosecutors for further probe into imaginable responsibilities of different people, arsenic well arsenic for different imaginable offenses, such arsenic espionage and amerciable trafficking of surveillance software.

The occupation is not that the lawsuit was archived, nor needfully the refusal to analyse a lawsuit of such large governmental and organization magnitude. The determination of the Supreme Court prosecutor, however, does not look to conscionable the accrued load of justification required by the quality of this case. Given that respect for the instauration of justness presupposes nationalist scrutiny, the occupation facing the home justness system is that the inability to transportation the nationalist is opening to take connected organization dimensions, arsenic we observe successful this lawsuit a rupture with the Prosecutor’s Office communal practice: In cases of doubt, the usual signifier tends to beryllium to analyse further, not to adjacent the case. When the other occurs, the load of work for afloat and convincing justification increases. Bypassing probe requires stronger justification than a determination to investigate, while weaker justification will beryllium judged with severity.

The basal question is simple: If the grounds that emerged aft the Court of First Instance’s determination was unknown, why is it not considered sufficient to initiate a caller investigation? If it was known, it is adjacent worse, due to the fact that it becomes hard to understand the logic down the prosecutor’s determination to record the lawsuit and corroborate lone present that the grounds was known.

We indispensable beryllium very cautious successful these matters. Prosecutorial judgments indispensable beryllium respected, but this respect indispensable not beryllium uncritical. The organization stakes are very high. The wiretapping lawsuit does not simply interest idiosyncratic transgression responsibilities. It simultaneously touches upon the confidentiality of communications and nationalist information – that is, two of the astir delicate ineligible goods successful a wide democracy. Decisions with weak justification cannot person a well-meaning observer, particularly if helium is besides a lawyer with some experience. They undermine the trust of citizens which cannot beryllium demanded, but indispensable beryllium earned.

This trust is not a given. In a state governed by the regularisation of law, it is tested precisely successful ineligible cases where the astir is astatine stake. In addition, judicial officers should not hide that the justness system, is not weakened by criticism. It is weakened when it cannot withstand this criticism.

Aristides Hatzis is prof of doctrine of instrumentality and theory of institutions, and manager of the Laboratory of Political & Institutional Theory and the History of Ideas astatine the University of Athens.