The simplest solution for Kasidiaris’ party

In the last few days, the Greek government and main opposition SYRIZA have submitted their proposals for blocking Ellines - the party formed by Ilias Kasidiaris, a former top official of neo-Nazi Golden Dawn convicted of directing a criminal organization - from running in the upcoming general elections.

A common feature of both proposals is that they would allow the Supreme Court to exclude from the elections not only parties that include as members people convicted - even at first instance - of running or participating in a criminal organization, but also any party whose organization and actions do not "serve the free functioning of democratic government" (as stated in Article 29, Paragraph 1 of the Greek Constitution). The most important difference between the two proposals lies in the fact that SYRIZA's plan stipulates that for a party to be excluded, it should also...