GREECE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Ovvadias S. Namias, Vasileios Petropoulos, Ilias Spyropoulos and Emmanouil Apostolakis, Ovvadias S. Namias Law Firm
such infringing conduct be ceased or prohibited and to seek redress, as appropriate and available under EU or national law, such as compensation, repair or price reduction. Articles 1–12 of Law 5019/2023 describe and specify: • the general definitions and purpose of the Law; • the definition of consumer associations; • the bodies authorised to bring representative actions to protect consumer interests; • the manner of bringing representative actions; • the measures to cease and prohibit illegal conduct by suppliers; • the measures for redress and/or compensation; • the financing of representative actions; • the allocation of legal costs; and • the provision of information to consumers. However, since this report focuses on issues of a criminal law nature, after the above necessary intro- duction, attention will be focused on the question of the existence of a large number of victims of a criminal offence and the way in which they can safeguard their interests before the Greek criminal justice system. Participating in criminal proceedings in support of the prosecution under Greek law What should be clarified at the outset is that there is no provision in the Greek Code of Criminal Pro- cedure for a person to bring civil claims before the criminal court. Furthermore, neither Directive 2012/29/ EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime, nor Law 4478/2017 transposing it into national law, provides for any relevant regulation regarding efficient access to criminal justice for individuals who might not be able to afford individual criminal complaints. However, Article 63 of the Greek Code of Criminal Procedure specifically stipulates the following: “Those entitled under civil law to compensation or redress for a crime or to monetary satisfaction for moral damage or mental suffering, even when the obli- gation to compensate for the damage or satisfy the moral damage or mental anguish is limited exclusively
to a third party by law, may appear in criminal court to support the prosecution.” Based on the above Article, the victim of a criminal offence is considered a party to the criminal proceed- ings, provided that they have an active civil claim. An additional condition to having the right to appear in support of the prosecution as a party to the proceed- ings before the criminal court, is that the person must be the victim of the offence or the person directly harmed by it. The victim’s participation in criminal proceedings as a party to the proceedings in support of the prosecu- tion is of great importance, because any conviction against the perpetrator is, to a large extent, a prereq- uisite for the corresponding proceedings before the civil courts. Although criminal and civil proceedings are formally independent from each other, in practice the outcome of the criminal trial, in which the court seeks the sub- stantive truth of the case on its own initiative, also prejudges the outcome of the civil proceedings. However, before a criminal case reaches the criminal court, it must usually undergo a preliminary examina- tion and, in some cases, depending on the serious- ness of the offence, a main investigation conducted by an investigating judge. In order to initiate a prelimi- nary investigation, it is sufficient to inform the police or judicial authorities by any means, in the case of offences that are prosecuted ex officio. On the other hand, in the case of offences that are prosecuted upon complaint, then, according to Article 114 of the Greek Penal Code, the offence is eliminated if the beneficiary does not file a complaint within three months from the day they became aware of the act and its perpetrator or one of the accomplices. Regardless of whether an offence is prosecuted ex officio or upon complaint, in order to enjoy the privi- lege of being a party to the criminal proceedings, one must file a statement of appearance in support of the prosecution. As can be easily understood from the above, the cur- rent regulatory framework established by the Greek
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