Statement by G. Kasimatis on the announcement of fines for unvaccinated elderly people

In a statement regarding the imposition of a fine on elderly people who choose not to be vaccinated against covid-19, the George Casimatis, a distinguished Greek jurist, political scientist and university professor of Constitutional Law.

The statement said:

«After continuous questions from citizens regarding the legality of the government's announcement of a special obligation for unvaccinated persons over sixty years of age to undergo vaccination with the threat of a fine of one hundred euros per month, I provide the following answer based on my scientific and social responsibility:

I recall my Opinion of 18/8/2021, which establishes the violation of fundamental Human Rights and the principles and norms of legality of International Law and democratic Constitutions by the direct or indirect imposition of all measures against Covid 19.

With regard to vaccination, it is pointed out that the infringement is much more serious and that, even if it is done for the good of man, it is a crime against man, since the vaccine is still at an experimental stage. The foundation is laid in the explicit provisions of international law, which were established after the experiences of the medical experiments of National Socialism, especially in Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of Man (New York 1966) and the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (in particular Chapter II, entitled: Consent, Articles 5 et seq.), (Oviedo 1997), which are also supra-constitutional domestic law of Greece.

In the same Opinion I stress the right and the obligation of all citizens and first of all the official Associations of Professionals and Workers to exercise every constitutional means of legal protection and especially to resort to national and international justice.

Regarding the recent announcement of the threat of a fine for the over sixty unvaccinated, it is a threat of a fine for not carrying out experimental vaccination and a threat of imposing this fine on the social category of people aged 60 and over. This announcement is, in my scientific opinion, a threat: First, the commission by the organs of the State of an act that violates the fundamental right of the individual on the basis of the above-mentioned provisions of Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Articles 5 et seq. II of the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine and, second, committing an act against persons over 60 years of age, which violates the prohibition of discrimination under international law and the Constitution. We note that this prohibition is a fundamental principle of the protection of the value of the human person.

We hope that the Government, taking all this into account, will not enact the threat with a constitutionally insubstantial law.

This informative statement for all citizens is addressed in particular to the mainly morally and scientifically responsible Boards of the central Associations of Lawyers, Judges, Doctors and Journalists, who exercise a public social function.

Kythera, 5 December 2021

George Casimatis»