Greece

These cases concern the inhuman and/or degrading treatment of the applicants on account of the poor conditions of detention of the applicants in overcrowded prisons in Greece between 2008 and 2018 (violations of Article 3). In Zografos and Others, the Court found a violation of Article 13, in conjunction with Article 3, on account of the lack of an effective remedy in respect of the applicants’ complaints concerning the conditions of their detention.

General measures towards the establishment of an effective domestic remedy
A draft law which has been tabled before Parliament since July 2020 aimed at establishing a domestic remedy concerning inadequate conditions of detention is still pending. It has been reported that this draft law was debated in Parliament on 14 December 2021 (in the context of a special Parliamentary Committee) in the presence of the Government Agent who advocated its adoption. It however appears necessary that the authorities provide the Committee of Ministers with a concrete and specific timetable for the examination and adoption of the draft law. The Committee expressed concern that despite its repeated calls over the last five years, no effective remedy has been put in place and stressed again that its introduction is urgently needed in view notably of the particularly high number of applications concerning prison detention conditions pending before the Court.

This case concerns a violation of the applicant’s right to a fair trial on account of the delayed enforcement of the judgment rendered in his favour in 2012 by the Administrative Court of Appeal, which annulled a decision of the administration not to appoint the applicant to a public service post in place of another candidate and referred the case back to the administration (violation of Article 6 § 1).

The Court also found a violation of Article 13 on account of the absence in domestic law of a remedy which would have enabled the applicant to obtain the enforcement of the above-mentioned judgment.

Action plan/report is awaited.

The case concerns the refusal of the Greek courts to register the association of the “House of Macedonian Civilization” on the grounds that the use of the term “Macedonian” by the applicant association and the purpose set out in its statutes was contrary to public order and jeopardized the harmonious coexistence of the population of the Florina region and public peace in Greece (§ 11) (violation of Article 11).

The European Court noted that the domestic courts rejected the applicant association’s application for registration on the basis of more or less the same line of reasoning as that adopted by them in the Sidiropoulos and Others case (§38), concerning the same association. The European Court also noted that “in order to assess the purposes and potential activity of the first applicant, the domestic courts relied on the fact that Articles 9-11 of the Convention included the concept of public order among the legitimate purposes likely to justify a restriction of the rights guaranteed… . However, in that case, they should also have taken into account the relevant case-law of the Court, which favours the registration of an association and not the prior review of its legality, when national law provides for clauses allowing for the monitoring of its activity a posteriori” (§ 42).

Law No. 4491/2017 was adopted on 10 October 2017, amending article 758, paragraph 1, of the Code of Civil Procedure. It provides for the reopening of non-contentious proceedings in cases where the European Court has found a violation of the right to a fair trial or any other substantive right enshrined in the Convention. A transitional provision has also been adopted allowing applicants, in cases such as this one, where the European Court’ s judgment predates the entry into force of the amendment, to request reopening within one year of the s publication of the law (i.e., before 13 October 2018).

The authorities have indicated that, to their knowledge, the applicants have not made use of this procedure. The authorities therefore consider that no further individual measure is necessary.

General measures

The authorities indicated that domestic courts promote the registration of associations, in line with the judgment of the European Court, and do not engage in any preventive control of their aims. More than 500 associations whose name includes a derivative of the adjective “Macedonian” are currently registered. It transpires from this that some of them conduct activities that are relevant to the preservation of the cultural heritage of their members.

In its Rule 9 submission of 8 October 2019, Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) noted that the Greek courts had not aligned their case law with the findings of the European Court in the 1998 Sidiropoulos case and that the new registration procedure initiated in 2005 had again been rejected by the Court of Cassation in 2009 on the grounds of public order and national security already criticised, leading to the present Court judgment. The GHM also pointed out that the third attempt to obtain registration on the basis of the Court’s new judgment was rejected on 27 July 2017 by the Florina Court of Peace on the same grounds and with an explicit reference to the 2009 Court of Cassation judgment. The GHM noted that the new reopening Law No. 4491/2017 entered into force in October 2017 but maintained that it was formulated so as not to apply to cases involving public order or national security issues. In view of this situation, the applicant association refrained from lodging both an appeal in cassation and an application for reopening as none of the remedies could be effective in its case.

To support this position, the GHM referred to a very recent judgment delivered in September 2019 by the Court of First Instance of Serres, which ordered the dissolution of the association “Brotherhood of the Serres Natives: Cyril and Methodius”, registered in 2017, following a request from the Prosecutor of Serres. The court held that the aim of the association to preserve the “mother tongue” did not refer to Greek but to “Macedonian”, whereas, according to the court, the mother tongue of the “Serres natives” is Greek. Thus, the aim pursued by the association was neither defined nor clear and created confusion that could not guarantee the preservation of the peaceful coexistence of the population of the region and was therefore contrary to public order.

The latest examination of the Committee of Ministers (1362nd meeting, 3-5 December 2019) pointed out the lack of progress in adapting the case law of the Greek Courts to the requirements of the Convention, recently confirmed also by the dissolution by a national court in September 2019 of another association in Serres. The Committee invited the authorities to keep them informed of any developments in Greek case-law of relevance to the present case and in particular the interpretation of Article 758 of the Code of Civil Procedure currently pending before the Court of Cassation.

This group of cases concerns violations of the applicants’ property rights due to the excessive individual burden they had to bear following the determination by domestic courts (between 2004 and 2018) of the compensation they were entitled to for the expropriation of their land in the context of highway construction works (violations of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1).

An updated action report received on 30 March 2023 (DH-DD(2023)406).Action report (regarding Tsigaras) was submitted on dated 25 August 2020. An assessment was sent to the authorities on 26 March 2021.

This case concerns a violation of the applicants’ right to property on account of the domestic courts’ refusal to examine the applicants’ action seeking payment of compensation for the expropriation of their land between 2003 and 2012 at the same time as assessing the final amount payable (violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1).

The European Court noted that the refusal of the domestic courts, including the Court of Cassation, to consider the applicants’ action seeking to award them the compensation due and the courts’ request that the applicants lodge a new relevant application with the civil courts have violated the principle of economy and the principle of promptness as well as the principle of the single procedure which was established in 2002 by the Court in Azas. Thus, they broke the proper balance that must exist between the public interest and that of the individual (§ 49).

An overview of the national case-law shows that the problem identified in Koutsokostas persists (see for example Athens Court of Appeal 267/2020 and 104/2018). In one of the recent domestic judgments (Athens Court of Appeal 267/2020), the appeal court, while mentioning expressly the Azas principle, it goes further to reiterate the earlier established case-law that the recovery of the compensation for the expropriation cannot be examined at the same time as the assessment of the final amount payable. In other words, the appeal court underlined that the issue of enforcement of payment is dealt separately after the final decision settling the compensation. In particular it argued that the issue of the payment of compensation always falls outside the single process provided by law.

In view of the above, updated information on further measures taken or envisaged is awaited.

This case concerns the violation of the applicants’ right of access to a court on account of the authorities’ failure between 1998 and 2011 to give effect to civil and administrative courts’ judgments recognising the applicants’ mother as co-owner of a plot of land and ordering the local authorities in Crete to demolish the buildings erected therein and the illegal occupants to return the plot to her (violation of Article 6 § 1).

The Court noted that the demolition of the illegal buildings constituted a preamble to the return of the disputed property to the applicants because the illegal occupants lived there and the attempts of the police to evict them ended in failure. All the attempts made by the administration to find a firm that could proceed to demolition were fruitless. Also, following the prefect’s decision of 1998 no formal notice ordering one of the illegal occupants to proceed with the demolition was served on him (§55).

The Court also considered that the respondent State must ensure, by appropriate measures, that the impugned domestic judgments are executed without delay (§64).

This case concerns violations of the right to freedom of association (Article 11) due to the domestic courts’ rulings not to register associations. The European Court noted that the contested measure relied on a mere suspicion about the true intentions of the founders of the association and the actions that it might have led to once it had started functioning. Moreover, the Court considered that even assuming that the true aim of the association was to promote the idea that an ethnic minority existed in Greece, this could not in itself be considered a threat to a democratic society. The Court noted in this respect that nothing in the association’s statute suggested that its members were advocating the use of violence or anti-democratic or anti-constitutional means. The Court recalled that Greek legislation (Article 12 of the Constitution and Article 81 of the Civil Code) did not set up a system of preventive control for the establishment of non-profit associations. It also noted that the domestic courts could order the dissolution of any association if it subsequently pursued an aim different to that stated in its statute, or if its functioning proved to be contrary to public order. Consequently, it concluded that the impugned measure was disproportionate to the aim pursued.

In its last examination (1468th CM-DH meeting, 5-7 June 2023), the Committee of Minister urged the authorities to consider without further delay all possible avenues in order to implement fully and effectively the European Court’s judgments and prevent recurrence of similar violations. It reiterated the call to the authorities to consider amending the system concerning the registration of associations, in line with the European Court’s case-law and the 2014 Venice Commission and OSCE Joint Guidelines on Freedom of Association, which favour the registration of associations without any prior control of their legality, when domestic law provides for clauses allowing the monitoring of their activity afterwards.

The examination of these cases will be resumed at the Committee’s 1483rd meeting (December 2023) (DH).