ATHENS – A 47-member Disciplinary Plenum of the Supreme Court on Friday fired a judge and a public prosecutor for “inadequacy” in performing their duties, due to their massive delays in issuing court rulings, as well as temporarily suspending one first-instance court president for six months for unjustified absences from her post.
Since last December, a total of 15 judges and public prosecutors have been dismissed on similar grounds.
Friday’s session considered the cases of six judges and public prosecutors, of which two were permanently dismissed, one was temporarily suspended for six months and one was acquitted, while two cases were postponed.
One of the justices permanently dismissed – and also forbidden to work in another public-sector position – was a public prosecutor serving on the island Corfu who had amassed 3,010 outstanding cases. The case files for 1,800 of these cases were found in her home, 324 were confiscated in the home of a friend and another 626 in the home of a second friend. Another 31 were found incorporated into other case files and 153 cases are still being sought.
She has been prosecuted for abuse of authority and removing public documents.
Also dismissed was an Athens first-instance court president who had been given a grace period of 3.5 months to clear her backlog but failed, as she still had 282 outstanding cases, of which 49 were from the past, while there were continuing complaints of delays. She was given the option to work in the public sector.
A third public prosecutor was referred to the disciplinary plenum over her sudden and unjustified absences from her post on an island in the Aegean and was suspended for six months.