Zoe Konstantopoulou

Zoe Konstantopoulou (Ζωή Κωνσταντοπούλου; born 8 December 1976) is a Greek politician of the political left, who served as Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament from February to October 2015.

Born on 8 December 1976, in Athens, Konstantopoulou is the daughter of former Synaspismos leader and lawyer Nikos Konstantopoulos and journalist Lina Alexiou.

Both her parents were leading figures in Greece's anti-dictatorship struggle.

She is a graduate of the Athens University and Paris Nanterre University law schools.

She obtained a DEA at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University on European criminal law and criminal policy in Europe and an LL.M. at Columbia Law School with a focus on international law, human rights and criminal law.

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.

Konstantopoulou was elected to the Greek Parliament on her first attempt in May 2012 as a candidate with Syriza.

She was re-elected in the June 2012 and January 2015 elections.

From 2012 to 2014, she was responsible for the justice, transparency and human rights brief for Syriza.

She wrote the Black Book of Shame, which lists what Syriza considered political and financial scandals.

On 6 February 2015, she was elected parliamentary speaker, with a record number of 235 out of 300 votes, from her own as well as from the Independent Greeks, The River, PASOK and New Democracy parties.

At her initiative, the parliament established the Truth Committee on Public Debt, with the mandate to audit Greece’s public debt, and the Committee on German Reparations, with a mandate to pursue Greek claims against Germany from the Nazi occupation, including reparations to victims, reimbursement of the “forced loan” taken by the occupation forces and the return of the stolen archaeological treasures.

During her term as speaker, she was elected chair of the Committee on Institutions and Transparency and initiated two anti-corruption investigations on two major corruption cases: the Siemens scandal (entailing bribery and money laundering of government officials by Siemens) and the Lagarde List (involving alleged large-scale tax-evasion and economic crime by political personnel and the country’s economic, media and banking elites).

In the summer of 2015, she left Syriza.

In the September 2015 Parliamentary Elections, she ran as an MP for Popular Unity but the party narrowly fell short of the parliamentary threshold.

Since 2016 she has been the president of the Course of Freedom.

In April 2016, Konstantopoulou launched a new party, Course of Freedom.

In the 2019 and May 2023 general elections, the party came in seventh and eighth place, respectively, but did not manage to enter Parliament.

She was elected back to Parliament following the June 2023 elections, with her party winning 8 seats.