Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is preserved with care for historical and informational reading.

Society is going through an untamed crisis. The people are being tested by unprecedented deprivation. Many are not in a position to secure their daily bread; others are losing both their jobs and their homes through auctions and evictions. Most struggle to pay bills that keep growing and banks that remain unmoved. Wages are being drastically reduced in the private sector, but also in the public sector, where many sinecurists rest while claiming the money of the loans. Basic necessities are gradually becoming unattainable because of the lack of money, which is attributed to widespread pessimism, to the failure to draw up programs for reviving the economy, and to the absence of ideological and economic orientation. The judicial power is devalued by party rivalries, medieval perceptions and arrogance. Parliament produces a multitude of useless laws that intensify the monstrous bureaucracy, sometimes supporting and sometimes undermining the three-part government, while the administration flounders, staffed not by capable employees but by armies of idle people. In this critical situation, those who can are called upon so that we may come out into the clearing, acquiring optimism, visions, action programs and endurance. Very few respond to this call. Most rush to defend their individual, large or small, but in any event short-sighted, interests, their various safeguards and their foolish guilds. Those who had saved money, from lawful or unlawful sources, rushed to secure it in foreign banks, such as those of Switzerland and Cyprus. No thought for the homeland and for others. The dominant feeling is service to narrowly individual interest. With a few anonymous exceptions, the numerous lawyers and their associations did not answer the call for the salvation of the homeland; their only concern seems to be the perpetuation of the protection of their profession, which is afflicted by overpopulation. In the struggle to defend individual rights, to combat the criminal activity of politicians, other oath-breakers and criminals, and to support society and democracy, very few lawyers made their presence felt. The exceptions are the very elderly law professors who, after growing old faithfully serving and praising, instead of science, lack of meritocracy, favoritism and political charlatanry, belatedly declare that they have come to their senses and, after the feast, judge, condemn and criticize what they themselves praised, promoted and supported, becoming ridiculous, otherwise a complete disgrace. Like all social and professional classes, lawyers too are absent from the struggle to exit the crisis. They have stagnated while trying to preserve the unjust protections they managed to obtain. They are already in direct conflict with notaries so that the so-called “lawyers’ work” will not be reduced. Because it was announced that notaries would undertake the issuance of payment orders and the processing of consensual, agreed, divorces, the bar associations rose up, declaring among other things that notaries are not “officers” or “co-officers of justice”, meaning co-officers of the mighty judicial power. Consequently, they have no right to participate in issuing divorces and payment orders. The lawyers’ associations, beyond the professional protection of their members, do not concern themselves with the social, political, legal and unresolved problems that torment society. The omissions of lawyers as a body are unjustified and unforgivable. For example, the associations of lawyers, apart from the globally original “strikes” or “abstentions”, which judges readily imitated for purely guild reasons, did not concern themselves with prosecuting the embezzlers of public money among named and prominent patricians of politics and state enterprises. Nor did they expel all those who, by their conduct, offended the legal profession. They tolerated the politicians’ enactment of immunity from prosecution for their own unforgivable crimes. They did not protest against the merciless persecution of the weak, the young and immigrants. They did not raise a voice of strong protest against the continuously imposed crushing and unjust penalties against the plainly innocent, sick, young, weak and non-privileged, nor were they moved by the endless imposition of taxes, extraordinary contributions and other financial burdens. Some insignificant reactions, staged for appearances, do not change the ugly image of the conduct of the lawyers’ guild, which is politically capped by petty politics. Many lawyers acquired the status of member of parliament and the corresponding privileges, sailing with the corrupt regime. Others staffed the decayed parties, providing their services not without reward. Some became general secretaries, without possessing the required qualifications, founded stillborn parties with the sole purpose of promoting themselves, and occupied various profitable posts in public enterprises, services and banks. Some became fixtures on television channels, pronouncing on every subject under the sun. They took over single columns in daily newspapers to spread various incoherent views, and most allied themselves with power and approve whatever it imposes against the body of citizens. Although the lawyer is regarded by law as an officer, a defender of law, morality, individual rights and democracy, the divisions of lawyers engage in entirely different works, with a few anonymous and insignificant exceptions. The result of this conduct is the devaluation of the legal profession, which is due to the blissful hypnosis of the so-called trade-union bodies, which have been recognized by law mainly as scientific associations and constitute legal persons governed by public law. Lawyers are rendered useless because they are treated by judges, prosecutors, police officers and power in general as useless, annoying and unnecessary, because they have lost their prestige and credibility. The appearance of lawyers in court provides the pitiful image of the devaluation of their function. Judges, haughty, expressionless, with marble faces, treat the lawyer as a necessary evil and the accused with prejudice and unbelievable contempt. They address him, for the most part and with insignificant exceptions, practically unknown ones, with contempt for his person plainly visible. The justified and lawful requests of counsel for unfortunate defendants are as a rule rejected, and the rejecting judgments are not reasoned. The lawyer is considered “by definition” a source of falsehood and distortion, and never a fighter for law and morality. With the devaluation of the legal profession, the defense rights of the accused, and above all of the weak citizen, are undermined and trampled as a whole. Many times convictions are issued and crushing penalties are imposed by the summary procedures of old military courts, without any respect for the most fundamental human rights. Court presidents, addressing lawyers, repeat in a disparaging, humiliating and unlawful manner the refrain “finish up”. In other cases, while the lawyer is developing a legal argument, struggling to support the positions of the anxious accused, the sharp, rude voice of the judge is heard: “Something else, something else, something else. Let us finish” or “finish up, we have other cases too” or simply “finish up”! Even at the school for judges, a special lesson is given to candidates on the way in which every lawyer must be neutralized; there are special instructions, practical exercises and drills. Even inside the courts, many police officers, the majority, behave with the familiar harshness not only toward the citizens present and the unfortunate defendants, who contrary to the law are dragged in chains into courtrooms regardless of age, state of health and status, but also toward lawyers. This behavior is due to the lack of upbringing, courtesy, training and ethos that should have been instilled in the souls and minds of police officers, especially the young ones. Corresponding and, rather, worse is the behavior of court clerks toward lawyers. Woe betide you if you fall into the disfavor of a court employee. The least you suffer is insult, impudence, manhandling, what in modern Greek is called “bullying bravado”. The inertia of the bar associations worsens the already miserable situation, because with the devaluation of the legal profession, due in large part to lawyer overpopulation and to the transformation of the associations into guilds, individual, political and fundamental human rights have ceased to be protected, while the quality of judicial decisions and judgments weakens dramatically. And let us not forget that the aggression of banks, usurers and other plunderers of the people is supported and escalated by those lawyers who forgot that they exercise a high function and that they have an obligation to serve Law, Morality and the Human Being, in a spirit of self-denial, social contribution and sacrifice.