Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is carefully preserved for historical and informational reading.

By its decision no. 1808/2010, Areios Pagos rejected the application of a person sentenced to life imprisonment (for violation of the narcotics law) for reopening of the proceedings, which had ended with decision no. 3327/2008 of the Five-Member Court of Appeal of Athens, even though Greece had been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) through decision no. 54781/16.04.2009 (Kanakis v. Greece) of that court (ECtHR).

Specifically, by the above ECtHR decision it was found that there had been a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and specifically of Article 6 § 1 of the ECHR, because of the excessive length of the criminal proceedings against the convicted person, which exceeded eleven -11- years.

The person irrevocably convicted in Greece, after the European court found that a violation had been committed against him, applied to Areios Pagos and requested that the criminal proceedings be repeated, on the basis of a corresponding special provision of the Greek Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP).

Areios Pagos, however, by the above decision (AP 1808/2010), held that the application of the irrevocably convicted person, which referred to the excessive length of the criminal proceedings, was inadmissible and had to be rejected, because "neither does the applicant invoke, nor does it appear, that the exceeding of the reasonable time for hearing his case, which the ECtHR of course established with binding effect, had a negative effect on the judgment of the criminal judges who convicted him for the felonious acts he committed" [page 1 of the 7th sheet of that decision].

The decision of Areios Pagos (AP 1808/2010) further supplements its reasoning with the thought and view that "the exceeding of the reasonable time is already an accomplished fact and cannot be reversed retroactively; therefore, reparation of the applicant's damage from the exceeding that occurred cannot be achieved by reopening the proceedings (AP 415/2009, 1628/2002)".

In other words, Areios Pagos rejected the convicted person's application because it held that the duration of the criminal proceedings has no significance, that is, that a person may be tried even for the whole rest of his life without this having any consequence for the final convicting judgment, which remains unassailable, fair and binding.

However, this view does not seem persuasive, lenient or just, but particularly dangerous and, for that reason, open to criticism by any interested citizen (lawyer or not), who may state objections or argue in favor of this decision, necessarily setting out logical and/or legal arguments (for or against), thoughts, opinions and views, invoking his or her own sense of justice.