Targeted warning abstentions of lawyers from the trial of cases before the Political Departments of the Supreme Court on January 13 and 14, 2025, as well as from the 1st meeting of the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court of the year 2025 during the trial of civil cases in appellate procedure, suggests to the Lawyers Associations of the country the coordinating committee of the Plenary of the presidents of the Bar Associations of Greece.

In particular, the coordinating committee proposes to abstain in protest against the recent decision of the Administrative Plenary of the Supreme Court, by which limitations are placed on the drafting and length of pleadings filed in the Supreme Civil Court on civil cases and on the time for the parties’ counsel to be called.

In more detail, the announcement of the coordinating committee is as follows:

“The coordinating committee expresses its absolute opposition to the decision of the Administrative Plenary of the Supreme Court from 20.12.2024, which limits the composition and length of pleadings filed before the Supreme Court in civil cases and in terms of time of counsel for the parties.

This decision constitutes a restriction on the right to judicial protection of citizens, the defense of which, according to articles 20 par. 1 of the Constitution and 6 par. 1 of the ECHR, is a fundamental obligation of the State and a project for the legal profession and creates risks of inadmissibility in terms of the exercise of the rights of the parties, even taking into account that, according to the established jurisprudence of the Court and especially with continuous decisions of the Plenary, both for the case 1, as well as this 19 of the grounds for appeal of article 559 of the Civil Code, it is required to cite all the relevant assumptions of the decision (see OLAP 1/2016, OLAP 2/2013, OLAP 20/2005, AP 19/2020, AP 1013/2023, AP 616/2024, 1137/2022), which does not allow limitations on the length of the records.

In fact, in the part where the decision establishes sanctions for inadmissibility of pleadings or not taking them into account, to the extent that they exceed the limits it sets, this decision was taken in excess of the relevant legislative authorization, since reasons for inadmissibility can only be established by legislative provision, amending the current Civil Code.

Furthermore, the decision in question is not going to contribute to the acceleration of Justice, which, in any case, cannot come at the expense of its correct award. After all, no acceleration was found even in the Council of State, which adopted corresponding measures and which remains in a prominent position pan-European in terms of the times for the awarding of Justice, with a delay of 1,239 days.

The extreme formalism that the Supreme Court seems to be adopting, invoking the need to reduce the time for the administration of justice, is in complete contradiction to the ECHR and the right to a fair trial and full, unobstructed and effective access to a court, through a legal representative . The ECtHR with its Decisions (Alvanos of 20.3.2008, Perlala of 22.2.2007 and Karavelatzis of 16.4.2009) criticized the Supreme Court for the unjustifiably formalistic interpretation of provisions of national law regarding the admissibility of remedies and the individual reasons put forward by the parties , while he does not hesitate to use more and more strict language and to remind that “Article 6 § 1 does not allow the use of tricks, which aim to avoid examination of the substance of the dispute” (Giannoussis and Kliafas v. Greece of 14.12.2006, §§ 26-27). The Decisions in the Tsiolis, Zoumboulidis and Georgiou cases move in the same direction.

The truth is that the delays in the administration of Justice, which reach the limit of denial of justice, are the “great patient” of the judicial system. As the ECtHR has repeatedly ruled, they are not only a violation of Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the ECHR, i.e. the right to a fair trial within a reasonable time and the right to substantial redress, but they also reveal the existence of a serious systemic problem character (pilot decisions of Glykantzis of 30.10.2012 and Michelioudakis of 3.4.2012).

In the end, for the delays, in the administration of Justice and the peeling of the Rule of Law, the problem lies in determining the pages of the pleadings and the time of purchase of the attorneys of the parties? The 2,373 days it took to issue a decision only in the appeal procedure at the A1 Department of the Supreme Court (on a civil case of debt from invoices: “E. anonymous company” against X.K), at a time when the average delay in the country is 1,711 days according to the World Bank figures for all degrees of jurisdiction, were apparently not due to the inability to read the pages of the pleading and in the long term of the power of attorney (!!!).

The causes of the pathologies of the Greek Justice are known to the State and to all the bodies involved in the administration of Justice and can only be dealt with effectively with their sincere and kind cooperation. In any case, they are not resolved by attempts at communicative management of problems and shifting of responsibilities.

In this context, the Coordinating Committee proposes to the country’s Bar Associations that their lawyer-members abstain from hearing cases before the Political Departments of the Supreme Court on January 13 and 14, 2025, as well as from the 1st session of the Supreme Court’s Plenary Session Ice of the year 2025 during the adjudication of political cases in an appellate procedure”.