Struggle for Accountability
The State of the Rule of Law in Greece today
Executive Summary
The European Commission’s annual Rule of Law Report is construed by the Greek government as a positive endorsement of its policies and actions. This seems to contrast sharply with the observations and concerns that have been repeatedly expressed by international organisations such as the UN and the Council of Europe about the country’s institutions.
Civil society demands a shift in the European Commission’s approach to the assessment of the rule of law in Greece towards placing the emphasis not on the “commitments” or “intentions” of the state but on the actual situation prevailing in the country. The reality as we perceive it suggests that violations of rule of law principles and values do not constitute isolated incidents.
Independent organisations Greek Council for Refugees (GCR), Hellenic League for Human Rights (HLHR), HIAS Greece, Homo Digitalis, Refugee Support in the Aegean (RSA), Reporters United, Solomon and Vouliwatch document systemic problems within Greek institutions that undermine the rule of law in our new contribution to the European Commission’s Annual Rule of Law Report. We identify a number of cross-cutting issues affecting different aspects of the rule of law in the country, focusing on the following:
The Justice System: Absence of accountability and attribution of responsibility to state institutions ]
The Greek judiciary systematically fails to effectively scrutinise the executive branch for wrongdoing and to assign responsibility for crimes perpetrated by state officials. The lack of accountability continues to permeate almost all facets of the rule of law and has become particularly evident in a number of recent high-profile cases that test the public’s declining trust in the justice system, such as the following cases:
- The investigation conducted by the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the National Intelligence Agency (EYP) or of any public official in the surveillance scandal. In fact, the case has been shelved as far as state institutions are concerned, with no explanation for the fact that many of those targeted for surveillance by the EYP were also targeted with Predator spyware or for the failure to summon witnesses and persons who allegedly had crucial evidence relating to the case.
- The Council of State decided by majority to refuse to review the legality of an 2023 amendment to the composition of the two constitutionally guaranteed independent authorities, the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE) and the National Council for Radio and Television (NCRTV). The former had an active role in the investigation of the wiretapping scandal. The Court found that the applicant, the Athens Bar Association, had no legal interest in seeking the annulment of the relevant decisions. This decision marked a serious setback in case law with regard to the role of bar associations in ensuring the institutional independence of independent authorities and the powers conferred on them by the Lawyers Code.
- The justice system (Public Prosecutors & Naval Court Prosecutor) has not triggered a single prosecution against public officials . Official data show that over 200 investigations into allegations of push backs and related human rights violations against refugees and migrants by state officials have been archived. As highlighted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in its landmark A.R.E. v. Greece judgement of 7 January 2025, the first condemnation of Greece for its “systematic practice” of push backs, no national investigation has gone beyond the stage of preliminary examination, thereby raising serious doubts about the effectiveness of the criminal justice system. The justice system has also proved ineffective in scrutinising police violence, leading to a fresh condemnation from the ECtHR in the recent Panayotopoulos v. Greece ruling. On the flip side of blanket closure of such complaints on grounds of lack of “sufficient evidence”, the practice of abusive criminalisation of the very victims of state arbitrariness and of human rights defenders persists, with prosecutions and even convictions handed down on highly questionable evidence.
- An unjustifiable delay of almost 2 years in the retrieval of critical pieces of evidence on the circumstances of the Tempi accident, specifically: a) the seizure of communication records and b) reported missing footage from the security cameras of the loading station of the commercial train from the visual material submitted to the authorities, ultimately increasing the risk of rendering the collection of critical evidence impossible and jeopardising the effectiveness of investigations.
- The preliminary investigation into the Pylos shipwreck failed to summon officials of the National Search and Rescue Coordination Centre (Ενιαίο Κέντρο Συντονισμού Έρευνας και Διάσωσης, EKSED), the Operations Centre and the leadership of the Hellenic Coast Guard to provide explanations, despite evidence in the case file pointing clearly to the responsibility of all of the above. Only the captain and crew members of the PPLS920 vessel and the members of the Special Missions Squad of the Hellenic Coast Guard (KEA) on board were summoned by the Public Prosecutor’s Office for written explanations (Piraeus Naval Court Prosecutor’s Office).
Delays in the processing of judicial cases are a long-standing and systemic problem in the justice system, with Greece ranking last in the EU in the speed of resolution of civil cases at first instance and with the Council of State being by far the slowest administrative court in the EU. This despite the fact that the number of judges in the country (37.3 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022) far exceeds the European average (17.6) according to the latest available data from the Council of Europe (CEPEJ).
The excessive and unjustified formalism of Greek supreme courts is also a major issue affecting the Greek judiciary, which results in the denial of justice, contrary to the obligation to ensure the right of access to justice. The ECtHR has consistently condemned the disproportionate stringency of the Greek Supreme Courts since 2000. Recent condemnations of the excessively formalistic attitude of the Council of State included the judgments of 4 September 2024 in Zouboulidis v Greece on the state’s compensatory liability for judicial errors and 19 November 2024 in Tsiolis v Greece on the admissibility requirements for an appeal.
“Poor” law-making
Both the executive and the legislative powers continue to systematically disregard the rules of good law-making. 41.67% of draft laws passed in 2024 were put out to public consultation for a period shorter than the two weeks foreseen in law. Furthermore, in the vast majority of the cases examined (44 out of 48 laws), the draft submitted to Parliament contained more provisions than the corresponding draft law submitted for consultation. Thus, more than 300 articles appear to have been adopted without having gone through the public consultation stage.
The practice of tabling and passing both late and irrelevant amendments remains a frequent phenomenon. More than half of last year’s amendments – 43 out of a total of 76 – were tabled on the day or the eve of the parliamentary plenary session for the passage of the bill, and almost all of them – 73 out of a total of 76 – contained provisions unrelated to the main subject matter of the bill. Similar concerns are raised by the phenomenon of the adoption of ‘omnibus legislation’, which can be described as anything but isolated incidents, as suggested by the fact that the terms ‘other provisions/regulations’ were found in the titles of 37 laws.
The recurrent amendment of laws even shortly after their adoption may be indicative of the haste and sloppiness that characterizes the preparation and adoption of laws, or perhaps of the frequent inability to implement these new provisions. Indicatively we note that the provisions of the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure were amended by six different laws in 2024 and again in January 2025.
Freedom of the press: At the bottom of the EU for the third year
For the third year running, Greece has been ranked at the bottom of the EU in terms of press freedom, as the pattern of concentration of media ownership by big business, combined with control of sports teams and shipping, is reinforced, while key data on media ownership is missing from the NCRTV’s public database.
At the same time, incidents of state interference or lack of objectivity in state broadcaster ERT, as well as attacks and abusive lawsuits (SLAPPs) against journalists continue to be reported. An emblematic example is the at least 16 lawsuits filed by the nephew and former Secretary-General of the Prime Minister, Grigoris Dimitriadis, against media and journalists for their investigation into the wiretapping scandal. The first of these was dismissed by theGreek judiciary in October 2024 and has been appealed by Mr. Dimitriadis.
Breaches of data protection obligations by state authorities
The failure of the Greek authorities to protect personal data was highlighted last year by a series of substantial fines imposed by the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (Αρχή Προστασίας Δεδομένων Προσωπικού Χαρακτήρα, DPA) on various ministries and the police force. The violations related to issues such as the leak of voter data outside the Ministry of Interior and their use by an MEP to promote political communication, the “Centaur” and “Hyperion” surveillance systems in Closed Controlled Access Centres (CCAC) on the Eastern Aegean islands and the process of issuing new Greek identity cards.
Anti-Corruption Framework: ignoring the rules of transparency
The gap between the tendency to over-legislate and the failure to implement these laws, as well as the chronic difficulty for citizens to access public information, are some of the main challenges to effectively ensuring transparency and accountability and, ultimately, to effectively fighting corruption. We note that:
- The effectiveness of the implementation of the law on lobbying is questionable, as is the adequacy of the controls (if any) carried out. The data published in the Transparency Register show serious shortcomings in the registration of both “lobbyists” and “institutional stakeholders”. Furthermore, the extremely low number of registered interest representatives and recorded meetings demonstrates the limited coverage of the law, which excludes “in-house lobbyists”, who constitute the vast majority of lobbying in Greece.
- The required transparency on gifts to political figures is not being ensured in practice. The list of gifts to the Prime Minister and the 60 Ministers and Deputy Ministers of the Government was only published following multiple requests and interventions by Civil Society, and with a format and content that raises concerns. Furthermore, the list in question is found in a seemingly informal document that lacks a date, stamp or signature, and refers to a total of only 25 gifts with four political figures as recipients between 2022-2023. Records of gifts to MPs have yet to be published.
- The Presidency of the Government has still not published the centralised electronic list of the staff of the private offices of Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Secretaries General and Special Secretaries, nor the annual report with the total number of associates and their salary scales, despite GRECO’s recommendations in this regard. The websites of most ministries do not contain details of the staff members of private offices.
- The deadlines for submitting asset declarations by politicians are almost never met, as extensions are constantly granted. Extensions granted in 2024, as in previous years, have led to the current situation in which the declarations for the years 2023 (fiscal year 2022) and 2024 (fiscal year 2023) have not been submitted – and thus also have not been audited or made public.
- The law on whistleblowers also does not appear to be being enforced, as the number of public and private bodies that have established internal reporting channels and the number of bodies and especially ministries that have not complied with the (at least formal) obligations set by the law remain unknown. Rather, the recent withdrawal of legal protection for two witnesses in the Novartis case and their subsequent prosecution raise serious doubts about the future of whistleblowing in the country.
We will continue civil society’s efforts to support the monitoring of the rule of law by providing reliable and timely information from our different areas of work.
We call on the European Commission to conduct a thorough review of the state of the rule of law in Greece and to make clear recommendations for immediate and concrete commitments by the Greek government.
Press Conference
On Tuesday 4 February, a Press Conference on the current state of the Rule of Law in Greece was successfully held at the Athens Bar Association with a significant turnout. The event was organised by the independent organisations Greek Council for Refugees (GCR), Hellenic League for Human Rights (HLHR), HIAS Greece, Homo Digitalis, Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), Reporters United, Solomon, and Vouliwatch.
You can watch the press conference here:
https://www.youtube.com/live/RtcNlo4_vtQ?si=gAKsLoYOoXJbpTkH
We warmly thank Omnia TV for organizing and hosting the online broadcast.
The event was moderated by journalist Natasa Giamali. Representatives of the collaborating organisations presented the main points of the joint report submitted for the third consecutive year to the European Commission on the Rule of Law in Greece in 2024. This submission is part of the Commission’s annual review of national systems.
The speakers emphasised the key systemic issues undermining the Rule of Law in Greece. These issues, coupled with the growing authoritarianism in politics and attacks on human rights, cast a dark shadow over democracy, posing significant threats.
The urgency of the organisations’ call to the European Commission was also highlighted, pressing a shift in its approach and the need to focus not on the state’s “commitments” or “intentions” but on the accurate depiction of the situation in the country. Systematic violations of the fundamental principles of the Rule of Law must not be treated as isolated incidents.
Alexandros Mantzoutsos, Counselor and former Vice President of the Athens Bar Association, delivered a brief greeting.
Key presentations of the report
- Stefanos Loukopoulos, Director of Vouliwatch:
“When the State itself undermines principles, procedures, and institutional counterweights through authoritarianism, impunity, and legal inconsistency, it fuels citizens’ distrust in institutions and leads, with mathematical certainty, to societal authoritarianism, with incalculable consequences for the future of Democracy.” - Minos Mouzourakis, lawyer at Refugee Support Aegean (RSA):
“There is a common thread connecting the Tempi train crash, the Pylos shipwreck, the wiretapping of politicians and journalists, the violent disappearances of refugees in Evros and the Aegean, and police brutality: the inability of the Greek justice system to fulfil its duty to attribute responsibility for arbitrariness and criminal offences perpetrated by the state.”
Additional statements from representatives of the other organisations
Alexandros Konstantinou, Lawyer, Greek Council for Refugees (GCR):
“Recently, the European Court of Human Rights found for the first time the ineffectiveness of the Greek criminal justice system in investigating pushback cases (A.R.E. v. Greece, Judgment of 7 January 2025). These cases, involving unlawful actions by state authorities, strike at the core of the Rule of Law. This finding by the Court comes at a time when issues of accountability and justice are central to public discourse and should seriously concern all relevant state bodies, including the Greek Judiciary.”
Elli Kriona-Saranti, Lawyer, HIAS Greece:
“The trend of abusive criminalisation of migrants, human rights defenders and lawyers as smugglers persists, despite continued objections from national, international and European human rights bodies.”
Thodoris Chondrogiannos, Journalist, Reporters United:
“The wiretapping scandal highlights the systemic flaws in the Rule of Law amidst systematic violations of the constitutionally guaranteed confidentiality of communications: Government attacks against the President of ADAE, judicial harassment of its members, the violation of the enhanced majority requirement of the Conference of Presidents of Parliament (⅗) for replacing ADAE members and preventing sanctions against the National Intelligence Service (EYP), the obstruction of investigating the joint EYP-Predator center, and the ‘legalisation’ of surveillance against ministers, politicians, journalists, and military officials, the violation of the obligation of EYP to immediately inform ADAE, and lawsuits against journalists.”
Danai Maragoudaki, Journalist, Solomon:
“The excessive concentration of major media outlets in the hands of a few powerful business-people, the interdependence of the media, the state, and the banks, and the inability of regulatory authorities to ensure the necessary level of transparency create a suffocating operating environment that undermines not only pluralism but democracy as a whole in the country.”
Katerina Pournara, Lawyer, Vice President of the Hellenic League for Human Rights (HLHR):
“In a period when trust in democratic institutions is shaken by incidents such as the Tempi train crash and the Pylos shipwreck, unreasonable and unlawful police violence not only threatens individual freedoms but also undermines democracy, fostering the authoritarianism of state institutions.”
Lamprini Gyftokosta, Director of Human Rights & Artificial Intelligence, Homo Digitalis:
“The protection of personal data is a fundamental right and a critical issue for democracy and transparency in our country. The fines imposed by the Data Protection Authority, amounting to €775,000 on three Ministries in 2024 alone, highlight the non-compliance of state bodies with existing legislation, undermining the Rule of Law and deepening citizens’ mistrust in institutions.”
