With the votes of the Southwest, was approved by the plenary approved the amendment of the Ministry of Health, which included the a provision on the immunity from prosecution of members of the National Commission for the Protection of Public Health against Coronavirus, the Public Health Emergency Response Committee and the National Vaccination Committee.
On the basis of the position that the parties declared that they would take in the preceding debate, the SYRIZA withdrew from the vote altogether. The Movement for Change did not take part in the vote, because his request that the amendments should not contain an omnibus of provisions has not been accepted, because it does not reflect the genuine will of Members. The KKE declared «present». Η Greek Solution had stated that he was voting against unconviction and voted against the MERA25.
The provision, which has provoked strong opposition from the opposition, stipulates that «the members of the National Committee for the Protection of Public Health against Coronavirus, the Committee for the Management of Public Health Emergencies and the National Committee for Vaccination, shall not be held liable, prosecuted or questioned for opinions expressed or votes cast in the performance of their duties. Prosecution shall be permitted only for libel or slander.
The parliamentary representative of SYRIZA was the first to raise the issue of unconviction, Yannis Ragousis, who announced that his party would withdraw from the vote if this provision was not withdrawn. «You are putting a gravestone on the public's trust in what has hitherto been the scientific community's management of pandemic», said Yannis Ragousis and pointed out that the provision does not only include the scientific committee of infectious diseases, but also government and service officials. «We will be the first to defend the scientific community for the freedom of expression of scientific knowledge against anyone who can turn against them and is in bad faith, is irrational [...] of course we will step forward to protect them in this case. But we are not talking about that, we are talking about a general provision that says they are not prosecuted, they are not liable and they do not explain themselves,» Ragousis said.
«And we do not vote for the specific amendment concerning the members of the administrations and their exemption,» said the secretary of the Change Movement's CO, Vasilis Kegkeroglou, «but in the blunt way that Mr Ragousis argued ‘they are not prosecuted, they are not apologised, they are exempted’, I remembered that the same was exactly the same in the SYRIZA amendment on the members of the HFSF. What are you talking about, Mr Ragousis!».
«The provision protects them from the cannibalism that we live with - to put it bluntly - from ‘spraying’ and from fake news», said the parliamentary representative of the Southwest Thanasis Plevris and added that committee members are at risk of malicious lawsuits from those who are against vaccinations. «Don't you know there are lawsuits being filed over masks? In schools, teachers are living it up. They are being sued because the child has to go without a mask, or the child has to go to school without self-test. So you want all these people to sue and the members of the Commission, while they know that they will be vindicated, to have to go to forty, fifty preliminary, to give written explanations?» argued Thanasis Plevris.
«You are dividing society by labelling a part of the world that is concerned ‘spraying’», the parliamentary representative of the Hellenic Solution addressed the government majority, Konstantinos Chitas. «You should be ashamed of the amendment you have brought, because you know very well that these people here are not talking about the HFSF. They are talking about human lives and some people have died. If you care about that, if you don't care about that, keep doing what you're doing,» said Hitas and reiterated that the government should release the minutes of the Infectious Disease Commission.
The KKE rapporteur called for vaccination coverage of the entire population with all vaccines that have been deemed safe, Maria Komnenaka, which referred to the dramatic staff shortages, particularly in vaccination centres and primary health care. The KKE MP complained that once again private clinics and private centres are thriving - this time with the vaccinations.
The «tsunami of amendments», denounced the parliamentary representative of MP25 Maria Apatzidi, who reiterated that her party has tabled a package of measures for the pandemic, but in the end the government chooses to shift the responsibility onto the backs of the citizens and wags its finger at them during the endless months of their confinement.
