Shelves loaded with case files at the Prosecutor’s Office in Athens collapsed on Tuesday, thus injuring two people.
A court clerk and an employee of a transport company were trapped under the voluminous case files and could be only rescued with the help of other clerks and citizens currently in the building.
The unrepresented incident with a clear domino effect occurred while the clerk and the company employee were loading more files on the metal shelves.
“Someone could have died,” the Court Clerks Association of Athens complained in a statement and warned of a protest action.
The Association stressed in its statement that the shelves fell during their loading with case files, as a result of which one of the two injured persons hit his legs and the second one his back.
“The magnitude of the danger of the incident is demonstrated by the fact that the help and intervention of citizens and colleagues who were in the area were needed to free them,” the association emphasized, while stating that the worst was avoided by pure luck.
The Association also recalled another incident when the false ceiling fell in the audience of the 3rd Single-Member Misdemeanor Court at the First Stance Court of Athens.
The Association calls for immediate control of the buildings of the judicial services in Athens, underlining that “our lives have value, they are not a cost.”
“Court officials have repeatedly highlighted the inappropriateness and the danger in many buildings, the serious deficiencies in material and technical infrastructure, etc. And yet, no government has taken the necessary security measures,” the statement stressed.
The Association will hold a protest outside the courts in Evelpidon in downtown Athens on Wednesday morning.
*pictures released by the Court Clerks Association
PS On social media one lawyer reported that the government’s digitization program “e-justice” had a cost of 200,000,000 euros until 2022.
Another Greek commented that in the case files form the “data center” of the Greek Justice is certainly hackers’ safe.