Per Parliamentary Group

Zoe Nikolaou Konstantopoulou

President of PLEFSI-ELEFTHERIAS

Member of Parliament Athens B1 Constituency (North)

Personal Info

Place and Date οf Birth:

She was born in Athens in December 1976.

Profession:

Zoe Konstantopoulou is the President of the Hellenic Parliament, a lawyer (active until her election at the Hellenic Parliament Presidency), a member of the Athens and the New York Bars, specialized in National, European and International Criminal Law, International Law and Human Rights.

Studies:

She graduated from the Athens University Law School and the Paris X University (Nanterre) Law School (maitrise- public international law). She obtained a D.E.A. at the Paris 1 (Panthéon la Sorbonne) on European Criminal Law and Criminal Policy in Europe and an LL.M. at Columbia Law School (New York) with a focus on International Law, Human Rights and Criminal Law.

Parliamentary Activities

Zoe Konstantopoulou was elected for first time as a Member of the Greek Parliament in May 2012 and June 2012, with the Coalition of Radical Left (SYRIZA). On 25 January 2015 she was re-elected and on 6 February 2015 was elected President of the Hellenic Parliament, obtaining a record of 235 votes.
She is also the President of the Committee on Institutions and Transparency. Subsequent to her initiative, two Committees of the Greek Parliament were recently set up: the Truth Committee on Public Debt and the Committee to promote the claim on the German (World War II) reparations, restitution the Nazi occupation loan and the claiming of the stolen archaeological treasures.
As a member of Parliament during her first term (2012-2014), she was responsible for Justice, Transparency and Human Rights Affairs for the Major Opposition (SYRIZA) and played an active role in the unveiling and/ or investigation of several large-scale corruption cases (Siemens case, Lagarde-list case, armaments- submarines case etc).

Political/Social Activities

She was responsible for the publication of the “Black bible of shame”, a collection of legal provisions adopted in the 2012-2014 era, through which persons responsible for economic crime and large-scale corruption where protected from criminal prosecution or even immunized. Since 2003, she has been an active lawyer in the field of Criminal and International Criminal Law with a strong emphasis on the defense of human rights.
As a student at the Athens University she worked as a stagiaire at the Athens Bar Law Clinic. She was a member of the Athens Bar Committee, which in July 2003 drafted and filed a complaint to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court regarding international crimes committed by British officers in Iraq. Since 1999 she is a member of the International Association of Penal Law. In 2001, she was an intern at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (Trial Chamber). In the years 2007-2012 she was the President of the Young Penalists Committe of the International Association of Penal Law having organized and participated in a number of international conferences and working groups. In 1998 – 2000 she participated in a Programme for the Education of Prisoners teaching English to prisoners of the Fresnes prison in France. On 2011 she was elected Secretary General of the Observatory on International Organizations and Globalization (PADOP). Her articles have been published in scientific reviews but also in the press.
Along with her studies at Columbia, she was a stagiaire in the Permanent Mission of Greece to the United Nations. She, also, offered pro bono legal aid to low income citizens regarding housing.

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