![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The brave new world of Areios Pagos is part of a new constitutionalist approach that is likely to affect the application of constitutional provisions in future cases, as the more recent decision concerning the elections of 25 June shows. Indeed, in order to accept the constitutionality of the legislative ban on Hellenes National Party, Areios Pagos had to provide not only a new interpretation of Greek constitutional provisions, but also a whole new vision of democracy, of the Greek and the European Constitution and of Greek constitutional politics. In their view, this “ambivalent” embrace of militant democracy “minimises the implications of the (…) judgment for future cases”.Īs I argue, this institutional reading of the decision might miss out its most important implications in terms of constitutional theory and method. This solution is the result of the judges’ will to uphold the law without affirming their own power to assess the democratic character of political parties. While the new interpretation of the constitutional provision allows for such bans, it does not go so far as to imply “an authorisation for the judicial enforcement of militant democracy”, according to the authors. In their comment in this blog, Samartzis and Vadivoulis explain that to accept the constitutionality of the legislative ban on Hellenes National Party, Areios Pagos had to depart from a long-established interpretation of Article 29(1) of the Greek Constitution, which until then excluded legislative bans on political parties. To do so, the judges had to accept the compatibility of the legislative provision with the Greek Constitution, and this was not an easy task. The decision applied a legal provision enacted in February in order to impede precisely this party, considered as the political successor of Golden Dawn, from participating in the elections. In its capacity as electoral judge, the first section of the Greek Supreme Civil and Criminal Court (Areios Pagos) recently banned the participation of the neo-Nazi Hellenes National Party in the elections of 21 May. These are exciting times for Greek constitutionalists. ![]()
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