A bold revision of Greece’s constitution was overdue and conditions for such a move were now ripe, main opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Monday, speaking at an event at the Centre for European Constitutional Law on “Is our Constitution resilient and what must change.”
“The new Greece that we envision needs a new Constitution,” Mitsotakis noted, adding that the revision must begin from Parliament and must be sufficiently bold to tackle the ingrained problems. The time had come for a new political generation to write its own Constitution, he added.
Outlining the form that such a new Constitution must take, ND’s leader stressed that it must be simpler and upgrade Parliament, ending its involvement in judicial functions. He also called for the abolition of article 16 dealing with the legal accountability of ministers, noting that Parliament could not replace the justice system. He also suggested greater involvement of the president in the election of independent authorities and the judiciary.
Finally, he underlined the need for a constitution that protected a government’s term in power and the stability of governing cycles, which he said should be increased to five years from four. Specifically, he noted that an inability to agree on a president should not interrupt a government’s term in power, while it should be made harder to call snap elections on the pretext of issues of “national importance”.
He also called for an end to the state monopoly on university-level education, while declaring that the debate on a revision of the constitution must begin immediately.
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