Impunity of the Ruling Class
Another common point between Greece and Argentina is the difficulty and/or slowness in bringing members of the elite to trial for serious crimes. On 20 April 2010, just as the Greek debt problem was reaching the scale of a crisis, former Argentine dictator Reynaldo Bignone was jailed for 25 years for his role in the torture and murder of political dissidents during the military rule of the late 1970s and early 1980s. For the first time, a former member of the junta made a formal admission of the ‘disappeared’ (he acknowledged that 8,000 individuals had suffered this fate).
Such impunity makes subsequent austerity measures, clampdowns and so on, once democracy is restored, difficult to implement. For all the faults of the American system, its principle that everyone is equal before the courts is taken completely seriously.
The Founding Fathers’ insistence that the judiciary is equal to, and independent of, the executive and parliament is respected and has stood the test of time. Bernie Madoff is in jail. President Nixon faced impeachment.
The accountancy scandals and alleged fraud during the subprime crisis have been followed by court action. Authorities in the USA and Britain have prosecuted individuals and companies for corrupt payments to Greek and Argentine politicians. But to date scarcely any individuals have been jailed or have even faced trial in Greece for corruption or other scandals.
