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Last night's meeting of the Council of Ministers gave green light to the changes in the law on ministerial responsibility that will be made in compliance with the existing Constitution.

Prime Minister George Papandreou stressed in his speech that amendments could be made "to cancel inadmissible differences in favour of ministers which the Constitution does not require."

During the presentation of the changes the Minister of Justice Haris Kastanidis said that the new bill will cancel the fast limitation, i.e. the future limitation for ministers and politicians misconduct will be the same as the common limitation provided for all citizens.

The Minister reiterated the promise of the ruling PASOK party to change Article 86 of the Constitution "as soon as possible" in order to facilitate criminal prosecution against ministers and deputy ministers committing perjury and damaging the country by abusing the trust of citizens.

The Ministry of Justice announced the following changes:

1. Cancellation of very short periods of limitation. The current law provides for five years of limitation even in cases of serious crimes. Acceptance of this restriction in favour of Ministers is not justified nor required by the Constitution. Under the new draft law, ministerial misconduct limitation is the same as the one applied to all citizens. At the same time, the limitation period provided for in Article 86 section 2 of the Constitution can not be changed.

2. Restrictive conditions. The current law prohibits forcible detention, arrest, temporary detention and imposition of restrictive measures of Ministers. The first three bans seem fully justified in order to avoid any disproportionate damage to the country's political life in terms of compliance with the procedure to which they are directed. But on the other hand, constraints such as the prohibition on leaving the country seem completely unreasonable, especially considering in how many countries politicians escape abroad.

3. Mandatory seizure of financial gain. Under the new provision in the draft law, the committee conducting the preliminary investigation orders mandatory seizure of economic gains derived from the investigated crimes.

4. Formation of advisory board. A three-member advisory board is proposed to be formed prior to the formation of a committee for preliminary investigation. It will consist of a deputy prosecutor from the Supreme Court and two prosecutors from the Court of Appeal and will be responsible to carry out legal checks on the data and assess their nature, and then will determine the need for investigation of possible criminal liability of a minister. This is essentially a legal revision of the charges in order to provide more guarantees to issue a proper decision on the necessity of establishing a committee for preliminary investigation.

5. Distrainment of any bank accounts, securities and financial products after the commencement of criminal investigations against any minister or deputy minister by decision of the magistrate, provided that criminal prosecution is carried out for cases of serious crime.

According to the Minister of Justice Haris Kastanidis, the constitution will need to be revised in order the provision on the limitation period for the misconduct of ministers to be changed. Today it is limited to the end of the second ordinary session of Parliament which begins after the crime unless the Parliament has not instituted criminal investigation against the minister until then.

The president of the Union of Judges and Prosecutors Haralambos Atanasiou welcomed the initiative of the government for changes in the law on ministerial responsibility.

Several hours earlier, however, the Union had made a very angry statement which stressed that "some have often applied communication tactics in recent times to blame the justice for not imposing penalties on political parties involved in scandals." Judges and prosecutors informed "once again the Greek people that those who have created the legal framework in a way that allows the impunity of those persons should take responsibility for these results. It should be clear that the current law on ministerial responsibility was established by the Parliament, not by judges. Therefore, they can not commit crimes while applying it contrary to the expectations and habits of certain people."

The system of justice was attacked by a deputy of the ruling party in connection with the rumours that the two major parties are preparing once again to "cover" a scandal, this time related with the bribes the German company Siemens gave for a larger pie in public procurement.

Unofficial sources claimed in recent days that all parties except the Communist party will submit a general report on the case of Siemens which will, however, contain additional notes of the various parties. The committee continues its session until the last moment and according to some sources, the possibility of submitting a general is receding.

Rumours about the names of politicians who took bribes from the German economic giant were buzzing in the Greek Parliament until late last night. Among the 12 names is that of the former Prime Minister Costas Simitis, the name of the leader of the Democratic Alinas and former Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis and of ten parliamentary members and former ministers in the governments of PASOK and New Democracy. The list contains the name of Costas Simitis’ advisor – Theodoros Tsoukatos, who admitted two years ago that he had received 1 million euros from Siemens, which he has given to PASOK’s safe, but the party does not acknowledge the receipt of this amount, and the names of several cashiers from New Democracy.