Iceland ex-PM faces negligence charges

At least somebody somewhere is trying to hold someone accountable for economic blunders of the financial crisis.  Working people are held accountable every day for how well they do their job. 

 

There are a lot of policy makers, economists, and talking heads in the United States that failed to see the housing bubble and/or did nothing to avert the financial avalanche that has ruined the lives of millions of Americans who had no control or influence in economic policy.

 

Financial Times:

Iceland’s parliament has voted to press negligence charges against former prime minister Geir Haarde, in the first concrete step to hold politicians accountable for the 2008 bank crisis that left the country’s economy in ruins.

The move came after a parliament-commissioned “truth report” earlier this year accused political leaders and regulators of “gross negligence” in their lax oversight of the banking sector before it collapsed.

Tuesday’s vote paved the way for Mr Haarde to become the first Icelandic leader to be tried by a special constitutional court set up in 1905 to hear cases involving elected officials. Punishment for criminal negligence could include a fine or two years in prison.

Icelandic lawmakers passed a resolution by 33 votes to 30 to take Mr Haarde to court after more than a week of fierce parliamentary debate over whether elected politicians should be held criminally responsible for the crisis.

Mr Haarde took over as prime minister in 2006, leading a rightwing government that championed the rise of Iceland’s banking sector to a point where its assets were 10 times greater than gross domestic product.

He was ousted from power in 2009 after the forced nationalisation of the country’s three biggest banks – Landsbanki, Kaupthing and Glitnir – left the Atlantic island nation and its 320,000 people facing billions of dollars of debts.

The meltdown of Iceland’s banking sector represented one of the most dramatic episodes of the global financial crisis, deepening panic in the markets less than a month after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.