Parliament: The codification of the legislation for the protection of antiquities is accepted by a majority

The bill of the Ministry of Culture and Sports entitled “Ratification of a code of legislation for the protection of antiquities and cultural heritage in general” was accepted by a majority by the Parliamentary Committee on Educational Affairs. In fact, as announced by the present Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, the legislation, in the form of a code, that concerns modern culture, is being prepared and will be put to a vote in the Parliament.

Referring to the bill, Ms. Mendoni said that codification becomes imperative as Law 3028 of 2002, “which was an extremely complete and groundbreaking law for its time”, has been the subject of several legislative amendments, with the result that the current framework is scattered in many pieces of legislation, and to be codified, “in order to facilitate access to the respective enforcer of the Law”.

It is noted that at the beginning of the process of elaborating the bill, the deputies of SYRIZA-PS left, with the rapporteur of the official opposition Sia Anagnostopoulou asking for the withdrawal of the bill in order to give the deputies time to study it and discuss it with the government. “You brought the bill to the committee, one and a half days after it was submitted, while you had it in your drawer for 8 months,” said Ms. Anagnostopoulou, stressing that ” Code), where the article on the protection of marine antiquities is deleted, and we have every reason to say that it was done with a specific intention, as in Article 71, where we see, in an insidious and underground way, deleted or reduced the burden of in cultural heritage “.

Commenting on the position of SYRIZA-PS, L. Mendoni said that the process does not provide for consultation and that it is a piece of legislation that brings together all the relevant provisions, for the good of the administration and the citizens. He noted that the text was drafted by the Central Codification Committee, which consists of “reputable lawyers and judges” in which, as he stressed, no one intervened.

“When you passed the Penal Code shortly before the elections, you completely abolished the strict provisions on cultural heritage, and we had to legislate in August 2019 to reinstate strict penalties,” she said. of law. Specifically for article 71 of law 3028/2002, he said that it is abolished because the provision in paragraph 1 of the jurisdiction of the Three-Member Court of Appeal for the trial of crimes of 3028, is already included in article 111 par. A5 of the new Code of Criminal Procedure. Also, the procedure of referral to the hearing provided for in paragraph 2, by summons of the Prosecutor of Appeals, after the consent of the President of Appeals, has been abolished by the transitional provision of case i of article 586 of the new CCP. He also said about article 66 that “it completely covers the underwater archeological sites” while “in no case does any provision change in substance”.

The speakers of the other parties also asked for the postponement of the debate in order to have time to study the bill, with the speaker of the Movement for Change, George Moulkiotis, expressing the certainty that the way the government chooses to legislate “has a specific purpose”, the speaker of the KKE Giannis Delis to note that in the capitalist countries “the cultural heritage is just another commodity to be exploited”, the spokeswoman of the Hellenic Solution Sofia-Haides Asimakopoulou to ask “to return the cultural goods that are illegally outside Greece” and the buyer of MERA25 Kleonas Grigoriadis to estimate that “the specific codification is a pretext for the cunning modification of special criminal provisions of the archaeological law”.

SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ