The main opposition are making an obvious attempt to utilize a national tragedy like the Tempi train collision for its own purposes, Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis said during a parliamentary plenary debate on Tuesday.
Speaking during the debate on a PASOK-Movement for Change (KINAL) proposal for a preliminary investigative committee on the responsibilities of then minister Christos Triantopoulos, the justice minister said he was confident he had contributed through his position to the acceleration of the judicial process.
The massive public demonstrations on the two-year anniversary of the accident, which claimed the lives of 57 people, were "spontaneous rallies entirely unrelated to parties." Floridis added, "The government received the messages in a clear and eloquent way. It understood there is a request and demand for truth to shine, there is a request that justice be served through the punishment of those who are guilty, and there is a request that can be summarized in the phrase 'Never again'. In other words, that there must be a radical intervention to resolve the chronic problems of the state. There was also a very clear message to the political system, that you should not try to take advantage of this great participation of the public in these events for party purposes."
Floridis also criticized PASOK and SYRIZA for their "permanent and constant overall doubts on the institution of justice" and PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis in particular for citing a report by the National Organization for Investigating Air and Rail Accidents and Transport Safety (EODASAAM) to deliver a motion of censure to the government. "But this report, which Mr Androulakis has seen as sacred, includes an explicit statement saying that there has never been any political order or intervention, any political directive, any political suggestion at all, for intervention at the site."
The proposal debated on Tuesday on a preliminary committee "is the greatest political opportunity to expose your hypocrisy. And it will be passed in voting," the justice minister said.
"You can be sure that in a case including the participation of 250 lawyers, who have signed up to speak, the plenary of bar association presidents, in a massive case file, nothing can be hidden, and nothing will be hidden. Truth will show up, justice will be served, and the state's chronic ills will be defeated," Floridis said.