The bill of the Ministry of Justice entitled “Interventions in the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure to speed up and improve the quality of the criminal trial – Modernization of the legislative framework to prevent and combat domestic violence” was submitted to Parliament.

The object of the bill is:

a) the amendment of the provisions of the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, in order for their application to contribute to the more substantial, efficient and direct conduct of the criminal trial, to the strengthening of the crime-preventive function of punishment through the principles of general and specific prevention and to economy of the criminal procedure.

For example,

aa) the maximum penalty of imprisonment is increased, the penalties for crimes of major criminal misconduct such as forest arson are tightened,

ab) stricter conditions for the suspension of the sentence are set, in order for the sentences for misdemeanors to be served through the alternative ways of serving community service and converting the sentence into a monetary one, but also with actual serving in a penitentiary, when the court deems it necessary,

a) measures are taken to protect criminal justice from persons who, by abusive and distracting exercise of their rights, unduly occupy its officials and obstruct the speed of its administration and

ad) the procedures for the processing and trial of criminal cases are accelerated by taking measures such as the encouragement of the criminal negotiation process, the limitation of the interim procedure of the judicial councils, as well as the transfer of the judicial material of the minor court and the court of appeal from multi-member courts to small-member courts , in order for the same number of judges to be able to form more courts and thus to hear a multiple number of cases,

b) the reformulation of the provisions of Law 3500/2006 (A’ 232), in order to:

ba) the provisions are adapted to the current social conditions and to the juridical and political need both to protect the institution of the family, minors and the victims, mainly women, who are affected with increasing intensity by domestic violence behaviors,

bb) to strengthen the psychological and financial support, as well as the social rehabilitation of the victims by expanding the competent bodies,

c) to provide for a special obligation for professionals to report incidents that come to their attention,

bd) to expand the process of criminal mediation and b) to strengthen other procedural means aimed at preventing incidents of domestic violence and preventing the perpetrator from recidivism,

c) the amendment of paragraphs 1 and 2 of article 45 of Law 4557/2018 (A’ 139)

c) by increasing the administrative fine of legal entities when the profit cannot be determined and

cb) by eliminating the condition of a previous irrevocable conviction of a natural person,

d) the establishment of liability of legal persons for bribery offences, in order to deal effectively, through the mechanisms of criminal law, with corruption phenomena, in addition to the already existing framework for combating corruption in natural persons..

The processing of the bill, by the competent parliamentary committee, will begin on Monday, February 12, 2024, at 16:00.

The Ministry of Justice, in its statement, states:

“The government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, implementing its programmatic commitments, is proceeding with a major reform intervention, in two directions:

A) Dealing with “small and medium” crime with the main means of sentencing, which combats the feeling of impunity and increases the vital need for citizen security.

B) Acceleration of the procedures and the time of the criminal trial, which is part of the general plan for faster administration of justice in our country.

Also included are regulations that deal with critical issues of increased national and social interest, such as ecological destruction through arson, domestic violence, the protection and delinquency of minors.

Finally, the Draft Law strengthens the transparency of public life, because it establishes special criminal responsibilities of Legal Entities in cases of bribing public officials in order to obtain unfair benefits”.