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The list of current and former deputies, who have filed claims in the Athens Administrative Court to receive cash compensations retroactively and with the due interest, is getting even longer.

From the total 121 deputies, 52 are from PASOK and 66 from New Democracy. The widow of a deputy who was in Parliament as a representative of the left coalition Sinaspizmos for one term and of the Communist Party during the second term has filed a claim too as well as a former deputy from the Left Party DIKKI. A former deputy named George Papageorgiou is also in the list. It is not clear whether he is a member of PASOK or New Democracy, because there was a deputy with the same name and surname in both parties.

The deputies require to be paid retroactively the legitimate interest and the difference between the salary of the President of the National Commission for Telecommunications and Post and the deputy compensation. According to the Greek Constitution, the deputy salaries should be equal to the salaries of the chairpersons of the three supreme courts in the country. Some time ago, a specific judicial decision made equal the salaries of senior magistrates and the salary of the President of the Commission. According to claimants, this has increased the deputy compensations. They refer to Articles 26, 87 and 88 of the Constitution and on the principle of separation of legislative, executive and judicial functions that are equivalent. The claims state that when the representatives of one of the three functions receive compensations higher than the others do, this is a violation of constitutional regulations.

Besides the difference and interest due, the deputies require € 10,000 for moral damages for not updating their income. The exact amount of the difference required cannot be calculated because the demanded compensations are different for each of the claimants as it depends on the number of years spent in Parliament. According to some sources, the claims are for an average of € 250,000 per deputy.

The announcement of the list was followed by a sharp response by the media and the Greek society. Citizens are wondering how it is possible for there to be deputies who want to be paid millions in times when the salaries and pensions of ordinary people are being continuously cut.

The two major Greek parties reacted immediately. The president of the PASOK parliamentary group Vassilis Exarchos stressed, "We have long ago declared our position against the claims of the members of our Parliamentary Group for payment of compensations retroactively." His colleague from New Democracy Costas Tasoulas noted, "Such claims are absolutely unacceptable in terms of this extremely difficult time financially."

Parliamentary chief Filippos Petsalnikos did issue a message stating that in order for the decision for the compensations of court representatives to be valid for deputies,  "a common decision of the Parliament Chairman and the Minister of Finance is needed, which will not be taken."

At the same time, New Democracy announced the names of active party members who gave up their claims in public statements. One by one, many current and former deputies from both parties said that even if they were awarded, they would not take the compensations. Some said they had given up much before the case became popular. Among them are the names of former ministers, such as Akis Tsohadzopoulos, Tassos Mandelis who have become enormously rich by taking part in politics. Their cases were investigated by monitoring parliamentary committees, which did not bring a lot of results and enabled the media to argue that the Parliament had completely justified them.

In any case, all are awaiting the trial, which will be held at the Administrative Court next spring, unless there is mass withdrawal of claims by that time. Judgments previously issued in such cases, whether they approved partially the requests for retroactive compensations or rejected them completely, refer to resolutions on the equal monthly income of deputies and supreme judicial magistrates voted by parliament in 1964 and 1975.  

According to the judicial interpretation of the constitutional regulation, which stipulates that deputies are entitled to financial compensation and means to pursue their activities, it is applied, because they are deprived of income from their occupation, while in Parliament. Therefore, compensation does not mean salary that is paid for work submitted, but aims to cover the economic consequences of the fact that deputies withdraw from their professional activity and deal only with parliamentary issues. In this sense, they believe that because of the relationship between deputy compensations and judicial magistrates’ incomes, any change in the amount of the monthly income of judges automatically leads to a corresponding increase in the amount of deputies’ compensations.