President talk of Constitution ahead of 200th anniversary of Greek Independence

Greece's President Prokopios Pavlopoulos yesterday addressed an international two day conference on "The Liberal Institutions of the Struggle for Greek Independence" organised by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece in the lead up to the country's 200th anniversary of the Greek War of Independence in 1821.

The President focused on the significance of the 1827 Troezen Constitution, or "Political Constitution of Greece" and its impact on all the Greek constitutions that followed.

Even though the Troezen Constitution was barely implemented because of the unfortunate events that followed, its extraordinarily progressive and liberal spirit left its stamp on all subsequent democratic Constitutions in Greece, he noted. "Even the current Constitution of 1975, with all the amendments made to it, retains along broad lines the hallmark of such measures and principles," Pavlopoulos said.

Among these, the President added it was the principle that sovereign power rested with the people, the separation of powers, that the Constitution superseded other legislation and a devotion to liberal values concerning fundamental human rights, equality, religious freedom, the right to property and freedom of the press.