ATHENS – A lawyer representing Ilias Kasidiaris, Vaso Pantazi, on Sunday announced that her office has submitted a memorandum to Section A1 of the Supreme Court – which rules on the eligibility of parties to participate in the elections – arguing that recent amendments to election law are unconstitutional and should not be implemented. It also lodged a request that a pretrial query on this issue be submitted to the European Court of Human Rights and the European Union Court of Justice.

“Late last night, our office submitted to Section A1 of the Supreme Court a memorandum to assist its judgement regarding the announcement of the combination of candidates of the National Party of Hellenes in the upcoming election process on May 21. Established in our memorandum is the unconstitutionality of the multiply amended directive of article 32 of Presidential Decree 26/2012 and the necessity as a result of its non-implementation by the Supreme Court. We are convinced that our memorandum will assist the Judges of the Supreme Court of our country in reaching a fair ruling that does not violate the right to be elected, the presumption of innocence, the free expression of the electoral body and our country’s commitments under international and European treaties. Regarding the last, we asked that a pretrial or potentially pretrial query be sent to the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union, for an authentic interpretation of the contradiction of the ordinance with supra-legislative provisions, before its implementation and not after.”

The amendments seek to block the participation of the party founded by Kasidiaris, who has been jailed for his prominent role in the far-right criminal organisation Golden Dawn, in the upcoming elections on May 21.