3/ IMPUNITY FOR RACIST SPEECH, PROSECUTION OF BLASPHEMY: PUBLIC SPEECH AND THE JUDICIARY D | LAW 927/1979 AND ITS INTERPRETATION: THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION OF RACIST DISCOURSE The irst anti-racist law in Greece was instituted at a rather unexpected time, in 1979, long before the huge immigration lows into our country. Thus, one could plausibly think that in the new social and political conditions ater 1990 there was a ready-made penal disposition in order to confront racist discourse. Yet despite the fact that racist discourse was broadly disseminated during the last twenty years and severe felony-level racist violence reached new heights, the legislators did not care to “renew” their criminal law regarding violent racist crimes (the so-called hate crimes), while at the same time Law 927/1979 was exercised as seldom as the recently abolished Penal Code provisions regarding… duels. It is, therefore, very likely that this law was exercised for the irst time in the famous Plevris case (to which we shall now turn). The irst judicial decision that applied it was issued in 2007 – that is, 28 years ater its enactment. Konstantinos Plevris, a lawyer by profession and a virtual guru of the ultra-right and neo-Nazism in Greece, published a voluminous book under the title, Jews: The Whole Truth, which led to his trial ater a complaint was iled and an own-initiative criminal prosecution was initiated for violation of Articles 1 and 2 of Law 927/1979.47 The Athens Three-Member Court of Appeal for Misdemeanours convicted him in the irst instance by majority and sentenced him to a 14-month jail term, which was wholly suspended. Of special interest is the view of the minority judge,48 who explained her arguments in favour of the defendant’s acquittal in a 32-page memorandum, something extremely rare, especially in a misdemeanour case with a rather limited record. Ater an appeal by the defendant, the minority view was largely adopted by a majority of the Five-Member Court of Appeal, which conducted the second-instance trial and acquitted Plevris of all charges. The acquittal is highly illuminating for its reasoning and use of excerpts from the book, as well as its interesting legalistic approach in treating the issues of limitations on freedom of speech and the weighting of rights. The interest lies mostly in the way the court gave its own interpretation of the author’s claims, fully adopting his assertion that the book 47. 48. In the criminal prosecution, the accusations did not include the incitement to discrimination on religious grounds, and, judging by the ratio decidendi, this omission proved crucial for the defendant’s acquittal. Regarding this particular judge, much fuss was made as soon as it became known that she administered a blog under the alias “marianaonice”, yet without hiding that she is a judge (there was also a photo of hers on the blog). On this blog, not only did she comment on the cases she judged, but she also used racist and anti-Semitic discourse. Suice it to quote her phrasing: “God-damned Jews, I wish Hitler had killed them all!”(http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.el.article&id=230315). MAPPING ULTRA-RIGHT EXTREMISM, XENOPHOBIA AND RACISM WITHIN THE GREEK STATE APPARATUS | 49