The Constitution of Greece

La Constitution de la Grèce

in 1974 Greece came out of a period throughout which democratic institutions had been dis- solved; this period lasted for seven years and is known

as the colonels’ dictatorship.

One year later, the 5th Revisionary Parliament

voted a new Constitution, thus signaling democracy’s comeback.

Pursuant to the Constitutional Act of 3/4 October 1974, the initiative for this endeavor was entrusted to the Government, headed by Konstantinos Kara- manlis, which was formed after the parliamentary elections of 17 November. The Government did in fact prepare the draft Constitution, which in December 1974 was distributed to the MPs and given wide publicity. Subsequently, in January 1975, after the Government had itself revised some of its provisions, the draft Constitution was officially filed with the Parliament, and the revisionary work -in fact, the framing of a new Constitution- began.

Having the fresh experience of the seven year long tyranny, the constitutional lawgiver of 1975, inspired both by the Greek constitutional tradition and by foreign constitutional advances, gave the Country a text which indeed combined regulations capable to secure the civil and political liberties of the Greeks, respect for the value and dignity of man and the development and stabilization of the welfare state.

At the same time, the constitutional legislator chose as form of government parliamentary republic and, more specifically, in accordance with the referendum of 8 December, which underlined the political change that came about, a «presided parlia- mentary democracy». By using the denominative «presided», the constitutional lawgiver intended to underline the fact that the head of state should be elected and not hereditary.

Eleven years of political life followed, which were marked by the smooth functioning of institutions, but, also, by disagreement about the proper extent ïf presidential competencies and in 1986 the first

revision of the Country’s constitutional chart took place, with the initiative of the parliamentary majority of the PASOK party.

The reform, focused mainly on the issue of presidential competencies which it drastically cur- tailed, while further strenghtening the powers of the Prime Minister. As a consequence, and as far as presidential powers were concerned, the denominative «presided» lost to a certain degree its importance.

Contrary to what had been the case with the first, the second revision of the Constitution, which occured after an additional fifteen years, also marked by the faultless functioning of political institutions, is characterized as consensual and came to completion in 2001. Its extend greatly exceeds, indeed, the extent of the earlier revision; it encompasses a broad spectrum of regulations, such as, among other, new human rights created by technological progress, rights which come to be added to the catalogue of classical liberties, the direct application, where appropriate, of constitutional rights to the relationships among private parties, the broadening of protection both of the natural and the cultural environment, the declaration of the principle of social welfare state, the assignment of lawmaking powers to the Parliament’s Standing Committees, the modernization of the system of the judicial review of the constitutionality of the acts of parliament, the constitutional status of the inde- pendent administrative authorities. These are reforms whose application in practice already seem to justify the choices made by the revisionary legislator.

Three years have already elapsed from this second revision, and in a few months the Parliament will celebrate the first thirty years of the life of the Constitution, with an exhibition meant to underpin the constitutional and political history of modern Greece.

Within the framework of this exhibition, the Parliament’s edition at hand wishes to make available the contents of the Country’s constitutional chart to the English-speaking community at large.