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

The State constantly produces new forms of crimes or makes old ones stricter. Among them, by the provision of Article 348 A of the Criminal Code, pornography is prosecuted as a crime, especially when it is directed against minors, in an attempt to protect minors who are in immediate danger from the attacks of those who, having a ruthless character, exploit the weakness of minority in order to profit, without caring about the consequences entailed by their specific criminal conduct. This newly established provision of Article 348 A of the CC, because of the recent nature of its enactment, does not have a rich framework of case law and, therefore, it is not possible to judge whether it was a successful provision and a well-aimed legislative measure in its practical application. However, from the relatively scant case-law production so far, it is possible to formulate certain thoughts and judgments (good-faith criticism), useful for drawing conclusions regarding the significance of the provision in the struggle to protect society from the corresponding criminality and, specifically, to protect minors from the continuous attacks of ruthless perpetrators. In order to demonstrate the social reaction to this specific form of criminality, which is connected with childhood, child innocence, the child’s weakness in resisting and minority in general, which needs to be protected, the legislator has elevated this form of criminality to a felony, provided that, in the given case, specific prerequisites are met. In other words, the crime under examination has been shaped and standardized in the law with respect for the provision of Article 7 of the Constitution, in such a way that it receives the required precise description which, as is known and as applies, not all behaviors that have been elevated to crimes possess. However, in these cases where specific acts are elevated to crimes and, indeed, to felonies, the prosecuting authority must act with particular care, seriousness and prudence, so that hot-headed prosecutions against persons considered suspects for committing acts falling under this specific provision are avoided, because of the great importance of the consequences against the perpetrator of acts that fall within the factual scope of this provision. It must be pointed out that, on the one hand, this specific provision is a means or tool for combating the corresponding criminal conduct by prosecuting the perpetrators of acts classified in this article as felonies; on the other hand, it is also a powerful weapon with which the state prosecuting mechanism is equipped, which must be activated and used with knowledge, prudence and extreme caution, so that it achieves its objectives each time without collateral losses, that is, without unsuspecting, absolutely law-abiding and, in substance, defenseless citizens being incriminated by the characterization, many times, of their criminally indifferent conduct as felonious conduct, with all that this entails against them. The occasion for the above concise thoughts was given by a specific case, the brief presentation of which will be useful in order to avoid abuses of the criminal provision in question; in other words, to avoid attacks by the prosecuting authority and, more specifically, by the police, against everyone indiscriminately, and through them the incrimination of innocent people, the criminalization of acts that are criminally indifferent and, in the end, the literal construction of guilty persons, the overoccupation of state officials and their distraction, and the distraction of their attention, from genuinely criminal behaviors, which thus remain unpunished, as the real perpetrators also remain unpunished and unrestrained. Soon, a dialogue will be opened regarding the crime of child pornography and its treatment by the courts, mainly in Greece, with an assessment of whether society’s response and the elimination of the phenomenon of child pornography have succeeded or failed.