Party SYRIZA Name Zoe Konstantopoulou | ||
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President Karolos PapouliasProkopis Pavlopoulos Political party Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) (2012-2015)Independent (Collaboration with Popular Unity) (2015-) Alma mater National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,Paris West University Nanterre La DefensePantheon-Sorbonne University Spouse Apostolos Mantis (m. 2014) Parents Lina Alexiou, Nikos Konstantopoulos Siblings Eleni Konstantopoulou, Vasianna Konstantopoulou Similar People Alexis Tsipras, Panos Kammenos, Yanis Varoufakis, Nikos Konstantopoulos, Vangelis Meimarakis | ||
Zoe konstantopoulou the greek debt is illegal and should not be paid
Zoe Konstantopoulou (Greek: Ζωή Κωνσταντοπούλου; born 8 December 1976) is a Greek lawyer and politician who served as Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament in 2015.
Contents
- Zoe konstantopoulou the greek debt is illegal and should not be paid
- Zoe konstantopoulou responds to a question from martti on prime minister tsipras
- Life
- Speaker of the House
- References
On 27 January 2015, as a member of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), she was nominated as Speaker of Parliament. She was elected to the post on 6 February 2015 with the record number of 235 out of 300 votes. Apart from SYRIZA, her candidacy was also supported by the Independent Greeks, The River, PASOK and New Democracy parties.
Konstantopoulou supported the Popular Unity party, formed by former members of SYRIZA's Left Platform, in the September 2015 parliamentary election. In April 2016, Konstantopoulou launched a new party named Course of Freedom, of which she is currently the leader.
Zoe konstantopoulou responds to a question from martti on prime minister tsipras
Life
Born on 8 December 1976, in Athens, she is the daughter of former Synaspismos chairman Nikos Konstantopoulos and his wife Lina Alexiou. She studied law at the Law School of the University of Athens, International and European Law at Paris X Nanterre and a post-graduate course at Sorbonne on European Criminal Law and European Anti-crime Policies. In parallel, in 1998–2000, she participated in the French prisoners education programme, teaching English at the Fresnes Prison. In 2001, she worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She then completed a second post-graduate course on Human Rights and Criminal Law at Columbia University, while working at the office of the Greek Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
Since 2003 she has been an active lawyer in Greece, focusing on penal and international criminal law and human rights. She first stood for office in the 2009 European elections for SYRIZA, and was elected for the first time to the Hellenic Parliament in the May 2012 election for Athens A. Re-elected in the June 2012 election, she served in the 2012–14 parliament as a member of the committees on Institutions and Transparency, Public Order and Justice, European Affairs, the Permanent Public Administration Committee, and the Inter-party Committee on German War Reparations.
As a lawyer, Konstantopoulou was criticized by women's organisations and by the Greek branch of Helsinki Monitor for repeatedly delaying the trial of one of her clients, a rapist, by raising procedural obstacles. Originally to be held in 2006, the man was not finally convicted until 2012. The River leader and MP Stavros Theodorakis regularly taunted Konstantopoulou in parliament about her role in what became known as the "rapist with the tyropita (cheese pies)" scandal. In Parliament, Konstantopoulou switched off Theodorakis's microphone when he was speaking about her role in the affair.
Speaker of the House
On 6 February 2015, after SYRIZA's victory in the January 2015 election, she was elected as the youngest Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament with 235 votes.
In July 2015 she spoke against the Greek government's agreement with the European troika regarding the political and economic countermeasures to the Greek government-debt crisis after the results of the bailout referendum in 2015.