Supreme Court cracks down on derelict judges

Thirteen lower court judges have been terminated over the past three months and more may be on the way.

The Supreme Court leadership is determined to tackle one of the thorniest issues of Greece’s justice system: lengthy delays in court decisions. The high court’s president, Maria Georgiou, will convene a new plenary session, the body responsible for terminating judges, soon.

All of the fired judges had been repeatedly admonished, suspended without pay, even fined for delaying issuing decisions.

The most egregious example concerned a judge who had not issued a single decision since 2012; her docket of pending cases had reached 400. Another had to be sued to turn over cases she had heard and filed away.

A third, spared to be given a last chance, had, until recently, been a permanent resident of Antwerp, Belgium.