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Swift Gradualism and Variable OutcomesVetting in Post-Authoritarian GreeceExecutive Summary
In Greece, a number of years after the collapse of the authoritarian regime, perpetrators who had tortured others walked the streets and were promoted rather than receiving any sanctions for their past behavior. This has caused many to believe that vetting did not go far enough. The implementation of vetting has led to differential outcomes in various political and administrative institutions in Greece, which are reviewed here with an emphasis on vetting in the academic community and the judiciary. Overall, vetting in Greece can best be described as swift and gradual. The post-World War II Greek crown democracy, which lasted from 1946 to 1967, was a "disciplined democracy," characterized by limited freedoms and political participation. Professing a nationalist and anti-communist ideology, the Greek Colonels staged a successful coup on April 21, 1967, and the Greek junta stayed in power until July 1974. In November 1973, Brigadier General Dimitris Ioannides overthrew the Colonels' regime, imposing an even stricter authoritarian rule. The final blow to the regime came when the junta of Ioannides staged a coup in Cyprus on July 15, 1974. Turkey reacted by invading Cyprus and occupying its northern part; the Greek military proved unable to resist. On July 24, the Generals resorted to Konstantinus Karamanlis and the pre-dictatorial conservative political party to salvage the situation, initiating the transition to a government of "National Unity." The government that came to power in July 1974 was not preoccupied with punitive measures against members of the deposed authoritarian regime and even less so with vetting. The priorities of Karamanlis, the first post-authoritarian prime minister, were first to preserve political stability in a period of tense relations with Turkey, and second to close all issues related to the country's authoritarian past in order to prepare for Greece's integration into the European Economic Community. More than 30 years after the fall of the Greek junta, it is still difficult to know how many people worked for the Colonels. One may count among the junta collaborators all those who were appointed to the top ranks of the state apparatus after the 1967 coup through 1974. After seizing power, the Colonels carried out sweeping purges and appointed a new Cabinet. Gradually, the Colonels swept the highest ranks of the judicial system, universities, and local government. They appointed new mayors, replaced all prefects-government-appointed heads of the country's regions-and placed new general managers and boards of directors at the top of state-run companies and public bodies. The Colonels changed the leadership of confederations of workers and civil servants, Greek Orthodox Church associations, and professional associations of lawyers. It is very difficult to find data on most of the people who collaborated with the Greek junta. Archival research about the seven-year authoritarian rule has become sparse. Research about how the Colonels came to power abounds, but there are only a few sources on the Colonels' regime itself. There is also an unspecified but probably large number of officials who did not resist the junta and continued working in and for the state apparatus, effectively contributing to the stability of authoritarian rule. After April 1967, thousands of Greeks continued discharging their duties in the armed forces, police, public administration, local government, and state-run companies, obeying orders "from above" as if any normal government turnover had taken place. It is impossible to know if these individuals actually supported the junta or if they were simply continuing with their occupations. In July 1974, when military leaders handed power over to Karamanlis' transitional government, they could not control the scope or pace with which he would vet institutions. What played a large role in resolving the problem of where to draw the line in vetting were the precarious conjuncture of tensions in Greece's external relations from 1974 to 1976, and the traditionally strong role of institutions such as the judiciary and the police. Although the military was completely discredited after its defeat in Cyprus, vetting in the military was rather slow and limited. As long as tensions between Greece and Turkey remained high, vetting was dangerous in that it could weaken the military as an institution and in so doing endanger the country's defense. While considerations of national defense constrained vetting of the military, considerations of political stability prevailed in vetting the rest of the state apparatus. Karamanlis aimed to build a strong executive at the expense of the other two branches of the government. He also aimed to attain social demobilization to allow elites to rule without pressure from the masses. After the fall of the junta, the Court of Cassation decided that the crime of high treason was started and completed on April 21, 1967, meaning that the events of that date were deemed to be a "momentary" coup and not a "revolution," as the Colonels had labeled them. Therefore, the political officials who had collaborated with the junta were not held accountable since they had held their posts after the crime had taken place. Initially, Karamanlis did not draft legislation to prosecute or vet the principals and subordinates of the junta. Between July and October 1974, the transitional government, fearful of provoking the army, did not take any action against junta's leaders or those associated with the junta. The rationale was that an elected, not a temporary, government should decide that issue; therefore Karamanlis only pursued punitive and vetting policies after he won the first post-authoritarian elections in November 1974. Events beyond the government's control precipitated measures taken against the junta's political leaders. Trials against junta leaders were initiated by the suit of a private citizen on September 6, 1974. The suit's legal basis was a criminal act of high treason and the government reacted with punitive policies rather than with vetting. Old legislation provided for deportation of political dissidents to isolated places and, in October 1974, Karamanlis used this legislation to deport the five most prominent leaders to a small Greek island. About 1,000 lawsuits were filed by private citizens at the end of 1974 but there was, at the time, no law for torture, and the "junta trials" resulted in 98 police, 34 gendarmerie, and 99 army employees being prosecuted. Of those prosecuted, 184 were tried and 113 convicted. Of those prosecuted, 57% of police, 73% of gendarmerie, and 60% of army employees were convicted. The Constitutional Act of October 3, 1974-which assigned the responsibility of investigating those "primarily responsible" for the authoritarian rule to the Athens Court of Appeals-and the first resolutions of the post-authoritarian Parliament limited their focus to the conspiracy of military leaders who led the coup on April 21, 1974, and the arrest and detention of 6,500 civilians on the day of the coup. No one who had served in the Cabinets between 1967 and 1974 was brought to trial. The three leaders of the coup received death sentences (that were later changed to life sentences) when tried at the Athens Court of Appeals and the other protagonists received long sentences for the crime of high treason. All general secretaries of ministries and all prefects were replaced in the first weeks after the transfer of power. All presidents and general directors of public bodies, state-run companies and state-owned banks were replaced by new personnel who were loyal to the emerging democratic regime. All mayors and members of town councils appointed by the junta were fired. The records of these officials were not checked individually. All were replaced outright simply for having worked for the previous regime. The transition government appointed new officials to all the above posts, with the exception of local government, where it re-instated the mayors and town councils elected in 1964, the last time municipal elections were held before the breakdown of democracy. The first short-lived government imposed by the junta in the spring of 1967 was headed by a higher-ranking judge, and nine percent of all ministers from 1967 to 1974 were former judges of public prosecutors; therefore it was pertinent to vet the judiciary. Two Constitutional Acts comprising the legislation for vetting the judiciary were issued in August and September 1974, almost immediately after the collapse of the junta. They provided for the functioning of the Higher Disciplinary Council and both restored legality in the system and restituted those judges who had been purged by the junta. Those judges who were called back to service were assigned rank and post individually by the Service Councils, the part of the justice system that was in charge of promotions and retirements. In parallel, the second act referred those judges promoted by the junta to the Higher Disciplinary Council, but the cut-off point for promotions was placed too high, exempting the vast majority of middle- and high-ranking judges and prosecutors who were promoted within the hierarchy of the justice system from 1967 to 1974. Judges who had benefited from the junta's purges by occupying their purged colleagues' posts were not touched by restituting legislation. The criteria applied by the Higher Disciplinary Council in vetting were the conditions of promotion to the post of President, Vice President, or General Prosecutor; the professional conduct of the person vetted; and his conduct outside the confines of the justice system, which implied involvement with the junta. These criteria were not, however, established in a systematic fashion. The penalties imposed were forced retirement, annulment of promotion, or temporary suspension of duty. Those judges who were already retired at the time of the authoritarian regime's collapse were exempted from these penalties. The legislation also gave the Minister of Justice a three-month deadline to sue any other judges who had committed any other disciplinary fault between 1967 and 1974, or had served at a political post during that same period. Judges who helped formulate junta policies were not covered by this legislation, illustrating another way in which the transitional government chose not to widen the scope of implicated persons in the vetting process. Another Constitutional Act placed the restitution of purged judges in the hands of the Cabinet, rather than the usual competent organ within the judiciary, making the process highly political and opening possibilities for political discrimination. However, the Higher Disciplinary Council was comprised of non-political members: two law school professors, two higher judges from the Council of the State, two higher judges from the Court of Cassation, and two higher judges from the Audit Office. This Council decided all cases in the first and last instance, with no right to appeal. Although the Prime Minister of the transitional government replaced the leading judges of all three high courts after the demise of the junta, only 23 judges were charged with disciplinary offenses by the Higher Disciplinary Council, producing meager vetting results. The middle- and lower-ranking judges were not included in the vetting procedure, and there was no pressure from the post-authoritarian governments of Karamanlis to vet pro-junta judges. The reluctance to vet the judiciary was related to the traditional role of judges in the Greek postwar political system: the judiciary had played a prominent role in building an anti-communist, semi-democratic regime during the period between World War II and the breakdown of the Greek democracy. The Constitutional Act of September 3, 1974 was drafted to restitute academics who had been dismissed by the junta and also to evaluate the cases of academics that had openly collaborated with the junta. Academics that had been dismissed or forced to resign by the junta were automatically re-hired; academics that had collaborated with the junta were separated into those who were appointed by the junta and those who actively sided with the junta within the university system. The Special Disciplinary Council was set up to deal with those who were appointed by the junta, but the restitution of professors purged by the junta took place before the re-evaluation of appointed academics. The criteria for evaluation were denouncing left-wing students to authorities and participating in administrative organs staffed by the junta. The Act was less lenient in regard to lower-level academic personnel; any academic below the level of associate professor who had been hired after April 1967 was subject to re-evaluation. Each lower-level academic had to attain two-thirds of the votes of the professors in their department to keep his post. A Presidential decree was passed to choose the nine members of the Special Disciplinary Council. A Legislative decree was also passed to exempt from vetting those full or associate professors who were elected to old chairs, made available between 1967 and 1974, only because the previous holders had been purged by the junta. This made the way in which academics had obtained their posts irrelevant in the vetting process. The Special Disciplinary Council examined 92 cases of academics. Only 78 of them suffered some disciplinary measure, such as temporary suspension. An unverified, but small, number of professors were fired. Given that in the universities there was mobilization for "dejuntification," vetting did not extend very far. There are several reasons for this meager result. Some collaborators of the junta among the academics had quickly changed sides and had approached the democratic factions within the universities. Others claimed that their low rank obliged them to follow the orders of higher-ranking academics that had collaborated with the authoritarian regime. In other cases, it proved impossible to show that particular professors had denounced members of the resistance to the police. Even when and where vetting did not result in the expulsion of pro-junta academics from the universities, the general climate in these institutions was hostile to any professors who had not resisted the junta. In August 1974, in order to vet army officers, the government resorted to the Supreme National Defense Council, a government organ that had existed for a long time and had the jurisdiction to promote or retire officers. Eleven generals were forced to retire and an unverified number of middle- and lower-ranking officers were put on temporary suspension. The criteria used in this process were whether the officers occupied top-ranking posts on the eve of the fall of the junta (in the case of generals) or had taken active part in the coup of April 1967 or in the coup of November 1973 (in the case of the rest of the officers). Vetting in the military, which paralleled punitive policies, included temporary suspension of duty, re-assignment to insignificant posts, or forced retirement. Military vetting proceeded in a gradual and stepwise fashion until the abortive coup d'etat staged by middle- and low-ranking officers in February 1975. It is reported that in the aftermath of the coup, 500 military officers were forced into early retirement and another 600-800 were transferred to various posts. Among the cashiered officers were 14 generals and 12 brigadiers. Today, neither the details of the vetting process nor the exact number of officers who were subjected to vetting are public information. One source claims that in the mid-1970s, the Greek army had approximately 15,000 officers, of whom between 500 and 1,500 were subjected to vetting. The Police and Security Forces Vetting in the police and security forces involved the replacement, re-assignment to positions of minor importance, or "pensioning off" of officials who occupied high-ranking posts under the junta or had become notorious for violating human rights. The decisions on whom to vet were taken by the prime minister and the competent ministers of the transition government. In mid-summer 1974, the transition government replaced the chiefs of the urban police and gendarmerie, the Greek intelligence service, and the National Security Service. These officials were discharged of their duties because they had identified with the deposed authoritarian regime and could not be trusted in a period of democratic transition. In August and September 1974, the government re-assigned three police and security officers to insignificant posts and relieved another 17 of their duties for a period of four to 12 months. The re-assigned or relieved officers were notorious for torturing members of the democratic resistance. In the aftermath of the attempted coup of February 1975, vetting was accompanied by prosecutions against officers of the urban police and the gendarmerie. An unspecified number of police officers were forced to retire, while 25 officers of the gendarmerie and 19 of the urban police were prosecuted. While vetting in the police picked up after February 1975 (eight months into the transition), it did not go very far. This may be attributed to the traditional role of the police in the Greek state apparatus. Even before the 1967 coup, police and security forces held a primary role in monitoring political forces of the center and the left. The case of Greece offers an example of the importance of political agendas and constraining conditions for the scope of vetting in post-authoritarian periods. With the exception of the military and university systems, "dejuntification" was largely restrained. The vetting process was generally swift and gradual, but it was also fragmented. There was no general procedure suitable to vet all political and administrative institutions, nor was there a central institution entrusted with the process of vetting. The criteria used in vetting in post-authoritarian Greece were related to specific instances of behavior of the vetted individuals. The effects of vetting in Greece varied, depending on the specific institution. Vetting in the military and in universities was deeper than vetting in the judiciary and the police. In the central and local government and the wider public sector, vetting was limited to the uppermost echelons of the hierarchy. It is doubtful that vetting touched the ranks of the civil service at all; it was only with the mobilization of socialist and communist trade unions towards the end of the 1970s and the advent of the socialist party (PASOK) in 1981, that important state sectors, such as the security apparatus and the central public administration, were eventually cleansed of most pro-junta elements. Vetting in Greece assumed both swift and gradual characteristics, differing according to sector. Specific vetting legislation was passed regarding the academy/judiciary, but not regarding the police/military/security; the pressure exerted by student groups led to academic legislation, while the potential threats posed to the transition process led to legislation regarding the judiciary. In addition, the vetting process was also fragmented; no general procedures existed, and no central institution was entrusted with carrying it out. The criteria used for vetting were specific instances of behavior. Overall, vetting did not touch the civil service until the late 1970s and 80s, following the mobilization of socialist and communist trade unions.
Click here for the full text of this chapter as it appears in Justice as Prevention: Vetting Public Employees in Transitional Societies, ed. Alexander Mayer-Rieckh and Pablo de Greiff (New York: Social Science Research Council, 2007).
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