State of Denial: How Greece Deploys Lawfare Against the Victims of its Failures
Source: Balkan Insight
Kafkas had been marching alongside comrades from a neighbourhood activist collective, carrying a banner calling for economic justice. His injuries made headlines, inflaming the protest movement, and six police officers were eventually charged over the attack. Kafkas emerged from hospital heavily medicated and beset by bouts of dizziness. In need of constant care, he embarked on a gruelling physiotherapy regime. The dream of becoming a professional photographer was abandoned, as was any hope of returning to his day job as a waiter. “Dark days,” is how he describes that period, from an armchair in the Athens office where he now practises as a psychotherapist. Today, the injury that nearly killed him is marked by a deep scar on his head and a difficulty with the use of his left arm.
Fourteen years after the May 11 demonstration, Kafkas is back on his feet and the Greek economy has turned the page on the debt crisis. The right-wing government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis has won plaudits from the financial press for its buoyant GDP growth, even if one in four Greeks lives on the threshold of poverty. Moreover, the state has yet to hand over a single cent of the 100,000 euros that it has been ordered to pay Kafkas as compensation. Instead, in a series of courtroom battles, it has denied liability and contested the compensation award.
Kafkas has a calm, analytical manner, befitting his new profession. However, he broke down while describing his injuries, regaining his composure only as he explained why he was not giving up the legal fight. “It’s excruciating, there is nothing pleasant in being subjected to this kind of sadism,” he said. “But there must be some point to carrying on if the state refuses to back down… If I can keep pursuing my case, maybe I can help put an end to this behaviour.”
This investigation reveals how the Greek state goes to extreme lengths to avoid making payouts to the traumatised victims of its failures. Alongside targets of police violence such as Kafkas, the claimants include the injured and the bereaved from mass-casualty events such as transport disasters and the increasingly frequent wildfires and floods. All face a long and costly fight through Greece’s notoriously sluggish court system. Battling them every step of the way has been a phalanx of government lawyers, tasked with litigating each claim to the bitter end.
Government lawyers in Greece are the employees of the State Legal Council, a public body with nearly 500 employees, overseen by the Ministry of Finance. “I put forward all the legal means at my disposal to support and win the motion,” said a Council lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid professional consequences. “Our client is the state. And when you sue the Greek state, you have the Ministry of Finance against you.”
The original article: belongs to Balkan Insight .
