NOW THAT the lawyers have total control of our lunatic asylum, we have to be extra careful about what we write because we don’t know from where the next libel suit is coming. Even worse is the fact that our judges have been awarding big compensation payments, by plantation standards, which could drive a small establishment like ours out of business.
Recently, an anti-government daily newspaper was ordered to pay out some 30 grand in a libel case and appealed against the decision. Not only did the Supreme Court uphold the decision, but it ordered the paper to pay even more because it deemed the original amount inadequate.
Under such conditions we are obliged to exercise restraint and choose every word we write with caution and care. So if our offerings are not as snazzy and sexy as they used to be, please show some understanding: we are living in a difficult period in which the lawyers have imposed their own regime – dictating right and wrong, patriotic and treacherous, the good guys and the bad guys.
The new value system appears to be based on the referendum and the stance each person or organisation took. If, for instance, a zealous ‘no’ campaigner, like Super-Mario gets in some sort of trouble, lawyers from the same ideological camp who are now in the driving seat will pronounce him innocent until proved innocent.
If allegations are made against a zealous ‘yes’ campaigner like George Vass, the lawyers declare him guilty even if there is no shred of evidence. The lawyers will also defend the right of the newspaper (pro-‘no’ Simerini) to print such allegations because they support freedom of expression and libel suits restrict press freedom.
In the case of Super-Mario, the same lawyers have accused the paper that made the revelations (pro-‘yes’ Politis) of persecuting a national hero and urged him to file a libel suit, because the right to freedom of expression must not be abused by powerful media owners. Principles have thus acquired much-needed flexibility, while the long of the arm of justice has acquired an adjustable length, stretching and contracting in accordance with who is involved in a case.
THIS ADJUSTABLE arm of the law was evident in the Super-Mario case as our wise Attorney-general, Solon Nikitas, made a 180 degree turn, thus making a complete mockery of scurrilous rumours suggesting that the government had tried to cover up the case. There was no attempt at a cover-up to protect Dr Madsakis. On the contrary our Ethnarch, who never interferes in matters of law, had instructed the AG to follow the letter of the law when he first heard about the matter last April.
So what had changed since April to enable Solon to order the police to investigate? The AG had been informed by the police, in writing, about the alleged involvement of Dr Madsakis in a case of suspected blackmail on April 29, six days after the Ethnarch was told about it. The next day, Solon replied in writing, telling the cops that he could not go to the Supreme Court and demand the lifting of Madsakis’ parliamentary immunity because he had not been provided with adequate evidence to justify such action.
He did not tell police what he would consider adequate evidence nor did he give the cops any advice as to how to proceed. Solon forgot that he had ceased being a judge almost a year ago, and instead behaved just like one, ruling the evidence insufficient and dismissing the case. So what had changed since April?
No additional evidence had been provided by the cops, so why did he not stand by his original decision? Had he suddenly remembered that he was the AG? Or had someone informed him that the duties and responsibilities of an AG are different from those of a judge?
He ordered the cops to investigate after receiving a letter on Tuesday (eight weeks later) from Justice Minister Doros Theodorou, requesting advice on how to proceed in the case. Why had Doros not written to him with such a request back in April? What had changed this week that made the government eager to investigate the case?
The only change is that the allegations are now public knowledge, even though we are one million per cent certain that this had nothing to do with the government’s and the AG’s about turn on the issue. A more plausible explanation is the hot weather. Last week’s high temperatures expanded the short arm of the law and, all of a sudden, it could reach bash-patriotic national heroes who belong to DIKO, and normally enjoying the high protection of the executive.
GIVEN that there was no cover-up, what the hell was the deputy AG, Petros Clerides hinting at when he said that “nobody talks to me about the case”. Clerides was present at the first meeting, at which the Chief of Police had informed the minister about the case, back on April 23, but since then was kept in the dark, not even being shown the correspondence between the police and his boss.
Clerides spoke about a very serious case that was allowed to “deflate”, implying that Nikitas had not wanted anything to be done. As for the Ethnarch, on Monday he claimed that the allegations, “at least at the stage I had been informed about the case, could not be proved, not even investigated”. But as nothing has changed since then – apart from the fact that all of Cyprus knows about the case – why can the allegations now be investigated?
Does he agree that it is because of hot weather that an investigation is now justified?
FOR A COUPLE of days, we had thought that the high temperatures had turned DIKO into a party of high principle and idealism, ready to dissociate itself from its MEP Super-Mario. That was the impression given after last Monday’s meeting when the party declared its readiness to take “brave decisions”, implying that it was ready to force Madsakis to resign in order to save the party.
The heroic warrior was not prepared to resign, however, and, after a second DIKO meeting on Wednesday, in which he was defended by the Ethnarch’s favourite patriotic lawyer, Andreas Angelides, the party, like Nikitas and Tassos, made the obligatory 180-degree turn. The party would not make a decision about Super-Mario until the libel case, brought by him against Politis was completed.
DIKO is not in a hurry to find out if their MEP is guilty or not, as the average time taken for a libel case to be heard is between two and three years. The irony is that the libel case turns Super-Mario into the accuser and the newspaper into the defendant which has to prove that its story was correct. Super-Mario as the accuser has to prove nothing.
But as DIKO deputy leader Nikos Kleanthous – a small-time Larnaca lawyer now part of the asylum’s ruling elite – astutely ruled: “Anyone who has the slightest bit of evidence against himself, would not provoke (sic) libel suits.” In other words, Super-Mario is innocent because he “provoked” a libel suit. First, he provoked nothing – he paid another bash-patriotic lawyer, Christos Klerides, money to file a suit.
As for the claim that only the completely innocent file libel suits, where did Kleanthous discover this fascinating truth? Did he read about it in a law-book or did Madsakis tell him?
BUT REALLY, why had DIKO changed stance in 48 hours? Our suspicion is that they received instructions from the Ethnarch, who remains the party leader because he does not trust Kleanthous to do the job. If DIKO forced Super-Mario to resign it would be indirectly censuring the Ethnarch for not making a similar demand of the crazy doctor ahead of Euro-elections.
This would be a mistake so DIKO had to change its position, two days later, so that it was in line with the enlightened decision taken by our infallible Ethnarch.
LAST WEEK, our establishment expressed great surprise that Super-Mario had not blamed the allegations against him on an Anglo-American conspiracy. It was clearly just a question of time before this was done. The conspiracy theories abounded this week, although, to be fair, none were blamed on the Anglo-American axis of evil.
According to Super-Mario, the allegations against him were part of a police plot.
“Ask how this conspiracy was plotted by the police,” he said. The same line was taken by his lawyer, Klerides, who issued a statement suggesting that the public revelations were part of a police plan to “eliminate” an expert witness in a case in which a cop faced manslaughter charges. Shouldn’t he have asked his client, the expert witness, why he had agreed to meet the defendant more than a dozen times?
But the top conspiracy theory was put forward by another big-shot lawyer, Efstathios Efstathiou. Get this: Politis had made the revelations against Super-Mario after the Euro-elections as part of the conspiracy to undermine Cyprus abroad, particularly at the European parliament.
Strange how all these lawyers defending Madsakis because he was not found guilty in a court of law have no trouble declaring a newspaper guilty of conspiracy against the plantation without any evidence (not even a recorded conversation). Isn’t the paper innocent until proved guilty of conspiracy in a court of law?
SPEAKING of legal issues, some people remain innocent even after they have been found guilty by a court. I refer to CyBC news boss Spyros Kettyros, a close friend of the Ethnarch and leading member of his election campaign team, who this week returned to work after a long suspension.
Kettyros was found guilty of indecent assault and causing actual bodily harm to a female subordinate (he bit her ear) at CyBC and fined £1,000. He was suspended in July 2003, pending an appeal his lawyers had filed against the sentence to the Supreme Court. Kettyros returned to work after the Supeme Court (in a different case) decided that in suspending him, the CyBC board had not followed the correct procedure.
Board chairman Andreas Aloneftis, who takes his orders directly from the Ethnarch, was the main supporter of Kettyros’ return! The board even considered moving Kettyros’ victim to another department in order to make way for him, but thought better of it, after its legal advisor pointed out that this would be penalising the victim.
What kind of laws do we have that allow someone convicted of indecent assault against a subordinate to return to his job? And what example is the board chairman setting when he supports the return of such a guy?
Kettyros cannot even claim that he was not found guilty by a court. His only defence is that he is a ‘no’ voter and loyal supporter of the Ethanrch.
ETHNARCH Tassos was on a big high this week as he visited Spain and Portugal with his first lady Fotini. The highlight of the week must have been the lunch given in their honour by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia at their palazzo. He was accompanied on his tour of the Iberian peninsula by CyBC hack Yiannis Nikolaou, who sent gushing reports three times a day.
Nikolaou has become the official cheerleader of the Ethnarch, putting a reverential, almost hagiographic, sheen on everything our infallible leader does. It is the same way Pravda hacks used to report the foreign visits of Leonid Brezhnev. He told us, for instance, that the Spanish government had “upgraded the visit” by the Ethnarch, citing the interviews Tassos had given to the Spanish press.
The way Nikolaou reported the story it was as if Spanish hacks were falling over themselves to get a few quotes from the great leader.
HIS CONFIDENCE boosted by his Iberian holiday, the Ethnarch decided to put perfidious Albion in its place on his return. The duplicitous British government had arranged for the pseudo-prime minister Mehmet Ali Talat to meet foreign secretary Jack Straw, which, according to the Ethnarch, was a blatant attempt to “upgrade the illegal authorities of the Turkish Cypriot regime”.
He adopted a more diplomatic approach to the meeting than he had done in the case of Colin Powell’s meeting with Talat. At the time he described US action as “hostile”. In the case of the Brits he was more restrained, opting for veiled threat. “Let London reflect on whether such a move helps in creating good feelings among Greek Cypriots towards Britain, which has many interests on the island,” he warned.
Earlier in the week, he had a go at Greece’s former foreign minister Giorgos Papandreou, who had the audacity to say that Cyprus should decide a strategy for securing a solution. Tassos publicly declared Papandreou’s views unworthy of his comment. It is not bad enough that Tassos has made enemies of the EU, the UN, Britain and the US, he is now going out of his way to alienate our only close ally in the international arena.
NICOSIA mayor Michael Zampelas has made an inspired new appointment. He has hired Kokos Eliades, formerly of the foreign ministry and ex-editor of the Ethnarch’s mouthpiece Kyrikas back in the 80s, as his personal communications advisor. He informed the Municipal Council of his decision last week, telling councillors that he would pay Eliades out of his own pocket.
This posed certain procedural problems. For instance, not being an employee of the municipality, Eliades was not authorised to receive or look at any municipality documents. The hiring of Eliades seems bizarre, as the man is a graduate of the same school of charm that his close buddy Tassos went to. Perhaps he has mellowed in his old age, but I suspect the crafty Zampelas did not hire him as an advisor.
He hired him because Eliades is a mate of the Ethnarch and has access to the palazzo, which Zampelas has never had, not for want of trying.
POLITICIANS and parties have been trying to cash in on Greece’s mega-successful run at Euro 2004. Yesterday, after the victory over France, EDEK issued a statement lauding the performance of the team. Before the match on Friday, our state news agency, CNA, filed a report informing us that AKEL’s parliamentary spokesman Nicos Katsourides would be unable to see the tie because of party commitments, but was confident Greece would win! Well I hope he doesn’t watch the semi-final either because it has brought Greece good luck.
