Institutional vacuums filled by primitive violence, judges warn

Judges with the Council of Statue issued a stern warning on Tuesday after an attack by anti-establishment group Rouvikonas on its premises in downtown Athens, saying that vacuums in the institutions of democracy are filled with “raw violence reminiscent of primitive societies.”

In an announcement issued a day after some 70 vandals smashed windows and threw black paint on the facade of the country’s highest administrative court in a daylight attack that was also captured on video, the Council of State judges called for better policing of the building and for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

They also said that they will not “engage in a discussion with people who violently push their way in to interrupt proceedings and influence our judgment.”

The court was closed to the public at the time of the attack, but judges were inside deliberating on the constitutionality of a labor reform law that will see reductions to thousands of pensions.

The judges added that such actions harm the people they are ostensibly supposed to be protecting by transferring the cost of repairs onto them.