NEWS

Legal snag looms for sex bill

Legal experts have raised concerns about the wording a draft law on sexual harassment, saying that if the bill is passed into law it will be difficult to apply, sources told Kathimerini yesterday. The draft law, unveiled in June, aims to make sexual harassment a punishable offense for the first time in Greece, with jail terms of up to three years and fines starting from 1,000 euros. However, a parliamentary council studying the bill says there are problems with the way sexual harassment is defined. The bill describes it as «unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature with the aim of damaging a person’s dignity, especially with the creation of a threatening, degrading, humiliating and offensive environment.» The legal experts argue this wording leaves many things open to interpretation as the definitions are not rooted in criminal law. They believe that terms like «degrading» and «humiliating» are open-ended since the bill does not define them and they are not part of the legal vocabulary acquired through previous laws.

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