The Supreme Court dismissed as inadmissible the appeal of Kovesi

The Plenary of the Supreme Court decided to dismiss the appeal of the European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kövesi concerning the length of the renewal of the mandate of Greek European prosecutors.

This now opens the way for an appeal before the European courts.

According to information, the appeal was rejected by majority (72–10) as inadmissible, without the Plenary examining the substance of the case. This is because, under Greek law, Laura Kövesi, in her capacity as European Chief Prosecutor, is not entitled to file this type of appeal; only the “affected parties” themselves (in this case the three prosecutors whose terms were renewed for two years rather than five) have legal standing.

It is also noted that, according to the ruling, even if the affected parties (Popi Papandreou, Charikleia Thanou and Dionysis Mouzakis) had appealed the decision of the Supreme Judicial Council regarding the shorter renewal of their terms, the Supreme Court would still have rejected the request, as a basic condition for such an appeal is that the renewal decision must have been taken by majority vote, with the minority consisting of at least two members.

In this case, however, the decision of the Supreme Judicial Council to renew the three prosecutors’ terms was unanimous.

During the hearing, the appeal was presented by constitutional law professor Spyros Vlachopoulos, who referred, among other things, to the need to clarify the issue of jurisdiction regarding the duration of the renewal of European prosecutors’ terms. He argued that the Plenary of the Supreme Court should have referred a preliminary question to the European Court of Justice, a position supported by the minority.

In any case, with the dismissal of the appeal, all domestic legal remedies have now been exhausted. Therefore, if the European Chief Prosecutor wishes to continue the procedure, she must now turn to the European Court of Justice.

New prosecutors

It should be noted that the Supreme Judicial Council is expected to appoint three new prosecutors who will join the Greek unit of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.

In total, there are 20 candidates, including Dimitris Zimianitis, who previously served at the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in Luxembourg, Olympía Kleitsaki, and others.