Kostas Chryssogonos
Associate Professor
Department of Law
University of Thessaloniki

The legal rules which regulate the process of parliamentary elections in Greece can be found either in the Constitution of 1975 or in ordinary laws. One should note here that the Greek Parliament consists of only one chamber (Vouli), which is the only central organ of the Greek State with democratic legitimation coming directly from the electorate.

As far as the Constitution is concerned, its Art. 51-54 foresee the general principles of the election and the composition of the Parliament. Art. 51 para. 1 foresees that: «The number of the Members of Parliament shall be specified by statute; it cannot, however, be below two hundred or over three hundred» . The ordinary law - maker has set that number at three hundred in all parliamentary elections from 1974 up to now.

Art. 51 declares the general principles governing the electoral process in its para 2-5. In particular the second paragraph of Art. 51 provides that: «the Members of Parliament represent the Nation». Therefore it can be concluded that they do not represent their particular electoral district, nor the voters who have voted for them and they are not dependent upon their respective political parties.

Para. 3 of the same article foresees the following: «The Members of Parliament shall be elected through direct, universal and secret ballot by the citizens who have the right to vote, as specified by law. The law cannot abridge the right to vote except in cases where a minimum age has not been attained or in cases of legal incapacity or as a result of irrevocable criminal conviction for certain felonies». Direct ballot means that no intermediate body or will shall be instituted between the expression of the popular will and the electoral result. The 1985 parliamentary elections were conducted under the system of the so-called «blocked list». Political parties submitted in this election a list of candidates to the electorate, which had a preset order of preference between the candidates. On the contrary, every other election in Greece after 1974 was based on the preferential vote system, which gives the voters the right to choose not only between parties but also between candidates of the party which they vote for. This preferential vote for a candidate is given by writing a cross at the left or right side of his name, as it appears in the list. The candidates who receive most preferential votes («crosses») of this kind are elected to the parliament seats which their party receives. When the preferential vote system was abolished in the 1985 parliamentary elections, objections against the validity of these elections were submitted to the Special Supreme Court, arguing, among other things, that the blocked list system introduced an indirect ballot, since the will of the political party and not the will of the people would determine the persons who would be elected. However this argument was rejected by the Special Supreme Court (decision Nr. 34/1985, Nomiko Vima 1986, p. 606).

As far as the universality of the ballot is concerned, the minimum voting age has been set at 18 by Law Nr. 1224/1981. It could be argued that this forms a democratic - participatory achievement that cannot be nullified by any future law. Therefore an eventual legislative attempt to raise the voting age at e.g. 21 or more years would contravene the constitutional principle of the universal ballot (Compare G. Papadimitriou, Constitutional Law, A, 1981, p. 23). It should also be noted that a suspension of political rights as part of a criminal conviction is not a very frequent event Therefore most of the Greek citizens detained in prisons have theoretically active political rights. However until recently they could not make use of their voting rights, because no polling stations were organised in prisons. This happened for the first time in the 1996 general elections, enabling prisoners to vote.

One final remark here is that, except the above mentioned explicitly foreseen constitutional principles concerning the voting procedure, the jurisprudence of the Special Supreme Court (decisions Nr. 48/1978, 35/1982 and others) and legal theory (see, among others, Ph. Vegleris, The particular nature of electoral law, 1992, p. 51) have recognised also the implicit principle of the equality of the vote. There is some uncertainty, however, concerning the constitutional basis of this implicit principle, since one opinion considers the general principle of equality (Art. 4 para. 1 of the Constitution) to be the basis and another opinion prefers the democratic principle (Art. 1 of the Constitution). Equality of the vote means that each citizen has only one and only vote and that each vote has the same legal validity with any other. Nevertheless there are disputes about the exact scope of this principle and its consequences for the electoral system.

According to para. 4 of Art. 51, «parliamentary elections shall be held simultaneously throughout the State. Matters pertaining to the exercise of the right to vote by persons living outside the Country may be specified by law». However such a law has not been published up to now and therefore these persons can only vote if they are willing to undertake an often long and expensive trip back home.

From the other hand, according to para. 5 of Art. 51, «the exercise of the right to vote shall be compulsory. Exceptions and criminal sanctions shall be specified each time by law». There is a dispute whether such sanctions can be other than criminal and more specifically whether administrative sanctions, such as the inability to receive a passport or a driver’s license, are constitutionally permitted or not. It seems that administrative sanctions should be regarded as unconstitutional, because Art. 51 para. 5 implies a link between the imposition of sanctions and the constitutionally foreseen guarantees against criminal persecution (Art. 7 of the Constitution, which contains the principle nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege).

Art. 52 is complementing the principles regulating the electoral proccess by providing that: «the free and unfalsified expression of the popular will, as an expression of popular sovereignty, it under be guaranteed by all State officers who shall be obliged to ensure such all circumstances. Criminal sanctions for violations of this provision shall be specified by law». This provision was not to be found in previous Greek Constitutions. It was intended to emphasize that no interference of state agencies falsifying the expression of the popular will shall be tolerated in the future. Accusations about falsified elections were very frequent in the 50’ s and 60’ s and contributed to the deteroriation of the political climate, which prepared the ground for the military coup d’ etat in 1967. On the contrary, all parliamentary elections after 1974 where held under satisfying conditions and therefore one could say that Art. 52 was generally respected up to now.

As far as the duration of the parliamentary period and the substitution of the members of Parliament are concerned, Art. 53 foresees the following : « 1. The Members of Parliament shall be elected for a term of four consecutive years, commencing on the day of the general elections. Upon expiration of the parliamentary term, there shall be proclaimed by presidential decree countersigned by the Cabinet, general parliamentary elections to be held within thirty days and the convocation of the new Parliament in regular session within another thirty days. 2. A parliamentary seat that has become vacant during the last year of the parliamentary term shall not be filled by a by-election, where such is required by law, as long as the number of vacant seats does not exceed one-fifth of the total number of the Members of Parliament. 3. In case of war, the parliamentary term shall be extended for the entire duration thereof. If Parliament has been dissolved, elections shall be postponed until the termination of the war and the Parliament dissolved shall be recalled ipso iure until that time» . One could comment here that the expiration of the parliamentary four - years term has been an exception up to now. Among all Greek Parliaments, within the period 1974-1999, only the elected in June 1985 has completed its term. In every other case a premature dissolution of Parliament has taken place, for various reasons each time, according to Art. 38 or 41 of the Constitution. By-elections are also a rare event, since there are, in most cases, enough substitutes from the same party list in any electoral district, who will fill a vacant seat.

Of great practical importance is the provision of Art. 54 para. 1, according to which « the electoral system and the electoral districts shall be specified by law» . Theoretically, the competence to choose the electoral system and to draw the electoral districts was given to the ordinary law-maker in order to ensure adaptability to the changing political and social circumstances, so that the functionality of Parliament in general and governmental stability in particular could be achieved. However, frequent and somewhat opportunist changes in the provisions of the electoral law concerning the electoral system indicate that the majority party has tried to manipulate each time the electoral system for its own interest. The general pattern of all systems used in Greek parliamentary elections after 1974 was the so- called «ameliorated» or «reinforced» proportional system, which gives the first party (which is, historically, either the center-right «New Democracy»or the center- left «PA.S.O.K» ) a considerably higher share of parliamentary seats than its share of votes is, at the expense of smaller parties (that is mainly the leftist parties). The sole exception was the proportional system used in the three consecutive elections of 1989 and 1990, which reduced the first party premium to a minimum, causing thereby governmental instability for several months.

Para. 2 and 3 of Art. 54 contain complementary rules concerning the electoral districts and the so-called State Deputies. Para. 2 provides that: « the number of Members of Parliament elected in each electoral district shall be specified by presidential decree on the basis of the legal population thereof, as it appears in the latest census.» A cencus takes place once every ten years in Greece, so that it should be clear which is the latest cencus each time. However the results of the cencus obtain legal validity only after their publication in the Official Gazette of the Hellenic Republic, which requires a ministerial decision to that effect. In 1993 the Interior Minister of the government of the «New Democracy» party refused to publicize the results of the cencus of 1991 and the elections of October 1993 were conducted according to the cencus of 1981. As a result several electoral districts where overrepresented in Parliament and others underrepresented, which led to a gain of two additional parliamentary seats for «New Democracy» at the expense of «PA.S.O.K.». An objection against the validity of the election was submitted to the Special Supreme Court, according to Art. 58 and 100 of the Constitution. However, the Special Supreme Court overruled the objection, stating that it is not competent to change the distribution of seats between the electoral districts and that only a regulatory act could achieve that effect (decisions 21 and 22/1994, To Syntagma 1994, p. 866 f.) This is an erroneous decision, since it tolerates the circumvention of the Constitution through the administration (see C. Chryssogonos, Electoral system and Constitution, 1996, p. 345 f.).

Furthermore, para. 3 of Art. 54 foresees that: « part of the Parliament, comprising not more than the one twentieth of the total number of its members, may be elected throughout the country at large, in proportion to the total electoral strength of each party throughout the country, as specified by law» . The intention of the constitutional law-maker was to facilitate the election of certain non-professional politicians, who could not be easily elected if they were required to collect preferential votes in an electoral district, but who can contribute with their expertise and personal authority to a qualitative upgrading of the Parliament. The electoral law has constantly set the number of these so-called «State-deputies» to twelve.

Art. 55 foresees the capacities neccessary in order to become a member of Parliament : « 1. To be elected as Member of Parliament, one must be a Greek citizen, have the legal capacity to vote and have attained the age of twenty-five years on the day of the election. 2. A Member of Parliament deprived of any of the above qualifications shall be forfeit his parliamentary office ipso iure» . Art. 55 lays down a general rule, in combination with the democratic principle itself (Art. 1 of the Constitution). An inherent element of the very concept of democracy is political equity in the sense that every citizen must in principle have equal opportunities for political participation. (See A. Manessis, The guarantees for the observance of the Constitution, vol. II, 1961-65, p. 97). Therefore everyone who possesses the capacities foreseen in Art. 55 should be able to candidate for Parliament and any norm preventing him from doing so is of an exceptional nature. Such exceptions must be explicitly foreseen in the Constitution itself (Art. 56 and 57) and should be interpreted restrictively. (See E. Venizelos, Lessons of Constitutional Law, I, 1991, p. 388-389)

Art. 56 provides for several «obstacles» or disqualifications for those who wish to become members of Parliament. The constitutional law-maker wanted to ensure that no candidate may abuse his/her capacity as a public servant, officer of the armed forces etc. in order to be elected as a member of Parliament. More specifically: Art. 56 : « 1. Salaried civil functionaries and servants or officers of the armed forces and the security corps, employees of local government agencies or other public law legal persons, mayors and community presidents, governors or chairmen of the boards of directors of public law legal persons or of public or municipal enterprises, notaries public, registrars of mortgages and transfers may neither stand for election nor be elected to Parliament if they have not resigned from the said offices prior to their nomination. Such resignations shall be valid upon written submission thereof. Military officers who have resigned may under no circumstances return to active service ; the return of civil functionaries and servants to their posts is prohibited prior to the lapse of one year from their resignation. 2. Professors of institutions of university level are exempt from the restrictions of the preceding paragraph. The exercise of the restrictions of the duties of professor shall be suspended for the duration of the parliamentary term and the manner of replacement of professors elected to Parliament shall be specified by law. 3. Salaried civil servants, military officers on active service and officers of the security corps, employees of public law legal persons in general, and governors and employees of public and community enterprises or public welfare institutions may not stand for election nor be elected to Parliament in any election district in which they have served for more than three months in the three years preceding elections. Persons who have served as secretaries general of ministries during the last six months of the four-year parliamentary term shall be subject to the same restrictions. Persons nominated as State Deputies and the lower personnel of the central State services shall not be subject to the same restrictions. 4.Civil servants and the military in general, having undertaken the obligation by law to remain in service for a certain period of time, may not stand for election nor be elected to Parliament during the period of such obligation» .

However, even when a candidate gets elected as member of Parliament, he must make sure that he has no links of dependence from state agencies, public enterprises etc. Therefore Art. 57 foresees a series of incompatibilities in order to prevent any such dependency, although it should be noted that there are also other forms of linkage between members of Parliament and e.g. big private business, which are not included there (see D. Tsatsos, Constitutional Law, vol. B, 1992, p. 251). The wording of Art. 57 is the following: Art. 57 : « 1. The duties of Members of Parliament shall be incompatible with the duties or the capacity of member of a board of directors, governor, general manager or their alternates, or those of employee of commercial company or enterprise enjoying special privileges or subsidies by the State, or to which concession of public enterprise has been granted. 2. Members of Parliament falling within the provisions of the preceding paragraph must, within eight days of the day on which their elections becomes final, state their choice between their parliamentary office and the above stated duties. Failing to make the said statement within the set limit, they shall forfeit their parliamentary office ipso iure. 3. Members of Parliament who accept any of the functions or duties specified in this or the preceding article as constituting a disqualification for parliamentary candidates or as incompatible with the parliamentary office shall forfeit that office ipso iure. 4. Members of Parliament may not undertake commissions, studies, or the execution of works for the State, local government agencies or other public law legal persons or of public or municipal enterprises or leases of public or municipal taxes or rent real estate owned by the aforementioned bodies or accept any form of concessions on such real estate. Violators of the provisions of the present paragraph shall forfeit their parliamentary office and related acts shall be null and void. Such acts shall also be null and void when concluded by commercial companies or enterprises in which the Member of Parliament acts as director or administrative or legal counsellor or if he participates as a partner with full or limited liability. 5. The manner of continuation or transfer or dissolution of contracts for the execution of works and studies specified in paragraph 4 and undertaken by a Member of Parliament before his election, shall be specified by law» .

Finally Art. 58 provides for the judicial review of the legality of the electoral procedure and of the qualifications of the members of Parliament by the Special Supreme Court : « The hearing of objections raised against the validity of parliamentary elections and their verification concerning either electoral violations related to the conduct of the elections, or the luck of legal qualifications is assigned to the Supreme Special Court of article 100» . This is an ex post facto review which has proven itself to be rather ineffective as far as the safeguarding of the constitutional order in issues arising from the electoral system is concerned. Only once since 1975 was a special feature of the electoral system considered to be unconstitutional. In this case the Special Supreme Court (decision Nr. 36/1990, Dioikitiki Diki 1991, p. 423 f.) awarded one more parliamentary seat to the political party already in power («New Democracy»). In general it is very difficult for the judge, from political and psychological point of view, to invalidate the whole general election, leading to a major political crisis, even if some major features of the electoral system are more than suspect of violating constitutional principles, such as the principle of equal vote (See Chryssogonos, op. cit., p. 305 f.).

Even as far as disqualifications and incompatibilities for members of Parliament are concerned, the jurisprudence of the Special Supreme Court was often unable to give clear and convincing answers to the issues arising from Art. 56 and 57 of the Constitution This has led to an even greater confusion about complicated provisions.

According to the electoral law (codified by Presidential Decree Nr. 92/1994), Greece is divided into fifty six «minor» (first instance) and thirteen «major» (second instance) electoral districts. The members of Parliament are elected according to the results of votes of their political party in each district, except twelve State deputies, who, according to Art. 54 of the Constitution, are elected in proportion to the total number of votes of their party throughout the Country.

The electoral system provides that the distribution of seats will be organized in three stages. The first distribution is carried out in the fifty-six minor electoral districts (most of them are multi-seat). The total number of ballots given in each electoral district is divided by the number of seats of the district plus one (the number of seats of each electoral district depends on its population). Then, the number of votes given to each political party in the specific district is divided by this number. The result is the number of electoral seats taken by each party. In one-seat electoral districts, the seat is given to the party that gets the relative majority of votes.

If the number of seats distributed in this way is bigger than the number of seats of the electoral district, surplus seats are taken away from the political parties with the least remainder of votes. This is however practically a non - existent scenario. If less seats have been distributed, which happens very often, the rest is given to the political parties at the second distribution.

The second distribution concerns the seats that have not been distributed in the first one. The country is now divided in thirteen major electoral districts; each of them comprises several minor districts. The total numbers of ballots in each major electoral district is divided by the number of seats that have not been distributed in the first distribution. The number of votes given to each political party is then divided by the number resulting from the above division. The new result is again the number of seats taken by each party.

In case that after the second distribution there are still undistributed seats, they shall be awarded to the political parties according to the following method : the total numbers of valid votes throughout the country is divided by the number of seats that have not yet been distributed. The number of votes given to each political party all over the country is then divided by this number. The result is the number of seats taken by each party. If several seats remain still undistributed, they are given to the political party that gets the majority of votes all over the country.

One of the most important points of the electoral system is the provision that political parties and independent candidates cannot enter the Parliament unless they obtain at least 3 % of the votes throughout the country, although they may have enough votes to get electoral seats in specific electoral districts. According to another provision, political parties should have in Parliament at least 70 % of the electoral seats that they would have taken in case the distribution of seats was absolutely proportional to their total electoral strength.

Parliamentary elections take place every four years and have to be held within thirty days from the dissolution of the Parliament. The convocation of the new Parliament shall take place within thirty days from the day of the elections.. Both are proclaimed by presidential decree (Art. 53 para. 1 and 41 para. 3 of the Constitution).

A citizen who wants to be a candidate can be proposed either by himself or by a representative or by twelve voters. Every political party makes a list of its candidates in every electoral district. Independent candidatures are also allowed, although they hardly have any chance to be elected, since the 3% threshold applies also to them. Before the elections, the civil courts of first instance confirm that the candidates have been lawfully proposed. The lack of legal qualifications of the Members of Parliament is also controlled after the elections by the Supreme Special Court of article 100 of the Constitution (Art. 58 of the Const.), as we have mentioned already.

Elections are held simultaneously throughout the State (Art. 51 para. 4 of the Constitution) on a Sunday from 07.00 to 19.00. The citizens vote before electoral committees presided by a representative of the Judiciary. The highest electoral committee, consisting of the President and judges of the « Areios Pagos» , one of the three Supreme Courts of the State, and officials of the Ministry of Interior decides upon the distribution of electoral seats. Candidates are declared Members of Parliament by the civil courts of first instance.

Greek parliamentary elections after1974 were generally in a way corresponding to the democratic standards set by the Constitution. There are some problems, concerning mainly the electoral system, which is of a rather unique nature («ameliorated» or «reinforced» proportional system) and leads to a strong underrepresentation of small parties. There are also questions about the effectiveness of the ex post facto judicial review of the electoral law and the practical inability of many Greek citizens leaving abroad to vote. However one could conclude that, under the present Constitution, the expression of the popular will has been free and unfalsified. This fact has contributed to the uninterrupted democratic normality which Greece has experienced after 1974 and up to now.

Selected Bibliography
(In english, french and german language)

I. Contiades, Griechenland, in: D. Sternberger/ B. Vogel (ed.), Die Wahl der Parlamente, vol. I 1, Berlin 1969, p. 555 f.

W. Gikas, Chanchengleichheit der politischen Parteien in Griechenland, Hamburg 1993.

G. Kaminis, La transition constitutionnelle en Grece et en Espagne, Paris 1993, p. 217 f.

G. Mavrogordatos, The Greek Party System, West European Politica, vol. 4, Oct. 1984, p 156 f.

A. Pantelis/ S. Koutsoubinas, Les regimes electoraux des pays de l’ Union europeenne, vol. II, London 1998, p. 273 f.

G. Papadimitriou, Die Institution der politischen Partei in Griechenland,

Ph. Spyropoulos, Constitutional Law in Hellas, The Hague/Athens 1995,p. 72-78.

Ph. Vegleris, Greek Electoral Law, in : H. R. Penniman (ed.), Greece at the Polls, Washington 1981, p. 21 f.