Greece on Friday tightened penalties for home violence in an try and cope with the issue increase in registered casesThough critics mentioned the brand new laws didn’t go far sufficient and missed necessary prevention measures.
Throughout heated debates in parliament, opposition legislators mentioned that the conservative authorities, led by Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis, had centered an excessive amount of on penalties. The brand new regulation prolongs pre -detention and permits the delay solely in distinctive circumstances, with victims now not obliged to seem in courtroom.
The invoice can be striving to carry the Greek laws to the European Union Directive of 2024 geared toward decreasing home violence. However attorneys, judges and ladies’s teams declare that new laws is barely a fragmentary software of this framework and misses preventive measures similar to informing campaigns and higher entry to authorized assist.
Previous to the vote, Ioannis Bugas, Deputy Minister of Justice, rejected this standpoint, saying the invoice “deepening the framework for the safety of victims of home violence.” The regulation was finally handed on Friday with 157 votes within the 300-seater Greek parliament, largely reflecting nearly all of the federal government.
Anna Wukas, a Diotima Heart advocacy, a non -profit -based Athens, which presents assist for victims of home violence, mentioned the invoice was a “missed alternative”.
“He misses, with none justification, rules geared toward enhancing the safety of susceptible teams, together with lesbians, aged, migrants and poor,” she added.
Official knowledge have proven a big enhance in home violence messages in Greece recently. Final yr, there have been 22 080 circumstances – virtually twice as many as a yr earlier, based on police. The arrests additionally doubled throughout the identical interval, reaching 13,503.
It stays unclear whether or not these will increase are because of a worsening main downside or extra prepared to report. Police haven’t led particular statistics on home violence till 2020 – which reveals how attitudes have solely modified lately and has made it troublesome for lengthy -term comparisons.
“It is a advanced phenomenon, it’ll take years to review to isolate the causes,” mentioned Mrs. Wukas of the Diotima Heart, citing the shortage of information.
A big second got here in 2021, when Mr. Mitsotakis and the President of the nation, Catherine Sakelairopulu, expressed their assist for Sofia Becatoru, an Olympic crusing champion who accuse a senior sports officer in sexual abuseS
The Greek Union of Judges and Prosecutors known as the brand new regulation “harmful” and mentioned it “would turn into a pretext for a brand new narrowing of persona rights.” In a press release on Monday, the union challenged a lot of provisions, together with the truth that the defendants might be sentenced with out with the ability to query the claimants.
The attorneys additionally objected to the invoice and arranged protests on Thursday and Friday, as they imagine components of the laws – similar to extended arrest – violate constitutional defenses, together with the presumption of innocence and the appropriate to a good trial.
Clio Papadoleon, a lawyer who was victims of home violence, mentioned the main focus of imprisonment was brief -sighted and will have “catastrophic” penalties.
“The automated detention of the defendants will make it troublesome for the victims to precise themselves,” she mentioned. “You should take into consideration the psychology of those individuals: if one has three kids with their associate, she is going to assume twice whether or not to report it if he is aware of that he’ll instantly go to jail.”
Michalis Chryohoidis, the Minister of Public Order, mentioned final month that coping with home violence was a nationwide precedence. Final yr, after a 28-year-old lady was lethal struck in entrance of a police station in Athens by her former buddy, his ministry started an initiative to open dozens of state shelters for victims of such assaults.
Though the change goes in the appropriate course, most authorities actions are a response to particular person tragedies, mentioned Ms. Papapadoleon, including that the brand new regulation needed to undertake a extra inventive method.
“If it is after the homicide or after the rape, it is too late,” she mentioned.
