Recently the Mixed-Jury Court of Athens, on a majority vote, delivered a verdict of innocence on all of the felony charges. Yet who exactly acquitted them? Out of the three judges and four lay jurors on the court, only one judge agreed that they should be acquitted, making for a majority together with three of the jurors. The two remaining judges, including the president of the court, as well as one of the lay jurors, voted to convict the defendants of grievous and possibly malicious bodily injury. 7/ JUDICIAL AUTHORITARIANISM AGAINST MINORITIES In the following section we touch upon case law concerning the “nationally sensitive” issue of minority associations. For a very long time, down to the present, routine matters such as non-contentious proceedings for the legitimization of a civil association have developed into major and enduring controversies of safeguarding national interests and “rights”, with local prefects and the judiciary acting as the guardians thereof.71 The Greek judiciary has engaged in a systematic refusal to grant the right of association to a number of our co-citizens who deine themselves as bearers of a minority identity, evoking the pretexts of public order and national security. This highlights the ethnocentric prejudices of the judiciary, who put Raison d’État above the law so as to safeguard a vague set of “superior” metaphysical goods and rights; a fortiori so as to render the minorities in question invisible, by any means possible – just as the “sanctity” of other metaphysical goods and sentiments is deemed superior to constitutional rights, as we saw above with the blasphemy cases. All of the relevant cases brought before the Greek judiciary eventually reached the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The courts of irst instance and the Greek Supreme Court systematically refused to legitimize associations bearing the words “minority”, “Turkish” or “Macedonian” in their titles, and have also ordered the dissolution of already existing associations ater applications iled by local prefects. Four cases in particular have hovered around the Greek courts for years. Three concern the “Youth Association of the Prefecture of Evros Minority”, the “Cultural Association of Turkish Women of the Prefecture of Rodopi”, and the “House of Macedonian Culture”, all of which Greek courts have refused to charter. In the fourth case, although the “Turkish Association of Xanthi” has existed since 1927, it was ordered to dissolve ater a request by the local prefect. All four of the associations brought their cases before the ECHR,72 which ruled in their favour on the grounds that the non-legitimizations or dissolution by the Greek judiciary were not “necessary measure[s] in a democratic society”, and that there was no “urgent social need” justifying the attitude of the national authorities. 71. 72. 60 | On this issue, cf. Tsitselikis 2012: 235, 242-252. These are the cases Sidiropoulos vs. Greece (1998), Bekir Ousta vs. Greece (2007), Hülya Emin vs. Greece (2008), Turkish Association of Xanthi vs. Greece (2008), while a new application (No. 1295/2010) iled by the “House of Macedonian Culture” before the ECHR is pending. ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG