Greece on Friday toughened penalties for home violence in an effort to handle a surge in reported circumstances, although critics mentioned the brand new laws didn’t go far sufficient and unnoticed essential measures geared toward prevention.
Throughout fiery debates in Parliament, opposition legislators mentioned that the conservative authorities, led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, had concentrated an excessive amount of on punishment. The brand new regulation extends pretrial detention and permits sentences to be suspended solely in distinctive circumstances, whereas victims will now not be obligated to look in court docket.
The invoice additionally seeks to align Greek regulation with a European Union directive from 2024 geared toward lowering home violence. However attorneys, judges and ladies’s teams have argued that the brand new laws is simply a fragmentary software of that framework and leaves out preventative measures corresponding to consciousness campaigns and higher entry to authorized assist.
Earlier than the vote, Ioannis Bougas, the deputy justice minister, rejected that view, saying the invoice “deepens the framework of safety for victims of home violence.” The laws finally handed on Friday with 157 votes within the 300-seat Greek Parliament, largely reflecting the federal government’s majority.
Anna Vouyioukas, an advocacy officer on the Diotima Middle, an Athens-based nonprofit that provides assist to victims of home violence, mentioned the invoice was a “missed alternative.”
“It leaves out, with none justification, provisions geared toward bettering safety for weak teams together with lesbians, older individuals, migrants and the poor,” she added.
Official figures have proven a big rise in stories of home violence in Greece lately. Final yr, there have been 22,080 circumstances — virtually double the quantity from a yr earlier, in response to the police. Arrests additionally roughly doubled over the identical interval, reaching 13,503.
Whether or not these will increase are on account of a worsening underlying downside or a larger willingness to report stays unclear. The police didn’t hold particular statistics on home violence till 2020 — signaling how attitudes have solely lately modified and making long-term comparisons troublesome.
“It’s a fancy phenomenon, it’s going to take years of analysis to isolate the causes,” Ms. Vouyioukas of the Diotima Middle mentioned, citing the shortage of information.
A landmark second got here in 2021 when Mr. Mitsotakis and the nation’s president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, expressed their assist for Sofia Bekatorou, an Olympic crusing champion who accused a high sporting official of sexual abuse.
The Greek union of judges and prosecutors known as the brand new regulation “harmful” and mentioned that it could “change into a pretext for a brand new narrowing of particular person rights.” In a press release on Monday, the union took situation with a spread of provisions, together with the truth that defendants might be convicted with out having the ability to query plaintiffs.
Legal professionals have additionally objected to the invoice and staged a walkout on Thursday and Friday as a result of they are saying elements of the laws — corresponding to extending pretrial detention — violate constitutional protections together with the presumption of innocence and the correct to a good trial.
Clio Papapadoleon, a lawyer who has represented victims of home violence, mentioned the emphasis on incarceration was shortsighted and will have “disastrous” penalties.
“The automated detention of defendants will make it more durable for victims to return ahead,” she mentioned. “It’s a must to consider the psychology of those individuals: If somebody has three youngsters together with her accomplice she’ll assume twice about reporting him if she is aware of he’s going to go jail instantly.”
Michalis Chrysochoidis, the general public order minister, mentioned final month that tackling home violence was a nationwide precedence. Final yr, after a 28-year-old girl was fatally stabbed outdoors an Athens police station by her former boyfriend, his ministry began an initiative to open dozens of state shelters for victims of such assaults.
Though change goes in the correct path, most authorities motion has been a response to particular person tragedies, Ms. Papapadoleon mentioned, including that the brand new regulation ought to have taken a extra holistic method.
“If it’s after the homicide, or it’s after the rape, it’s too late,” she mentioned.
