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

Since late 2010, a decision had been expected from the regular Plenary of the Court of Cassation, so that it could be determined whether the Treaty of Lisbon is also in force in Greece and, in particular, whether Article 50 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also applies within Greek territory. Under that article, no person who has already been convicted or acquitted by a court decision of a member state of the European Union may be convicted again for the same offence, on the basis also of the principle of interstate effect known as ne bis in idem, meaning not twice for the same offence.

The Treaty of Lisbon has been in force in Greece since 01.12.2009, and only now, after the passage of one and a half years, the self-evident was held by decision 1/2011 of the regular Plenary of the Court of Cassation, namely that this treaty is also in force in Greece.

Specifically, by the above decision of the Plenary of the Court of Cassation, which accepted the recommendation of the prosecutor of the Court of Cassation, a person may not be tried a second time for the same crime. Thus, the decision of the supreme court, the court of cassation, quashed an appellate decision of the Five-Member Court of Appeal of Athens, by which Greek seafarers, who often pay for the crimes of their employers, had been sentenced to prison terms for the transit of fifteen tons of cannabis and for possession of narcotic substances, namely the same quantity of cannabis, without regard to whether they had served their sentence in Italy for that offence.

More specifically, the Greek seafarers, members of the crew of a Greek-owned merchant vessel, were arrested by the Italian authorities in the Strait of Messina near the port of Fiumicino and were ultimately sentenced by the Court of Appeal of Rome to imprisonment for five years and four months for the joint transit and possession of 15 tons of cannabis, with the purpose of trafficking professionally and habitually; a monetary fine of 30,000 euros was also imposed on them. It should be noted that not even a trace of narcotic substance had been found on the vessel.

Without serving their sentence in Italy, they were convicted for a second time in Greece, initially to life imprisonment and then to twelve years of imprisonment, again for the same offences for which they had already been convicted by the Italian courts.

However, the Criminal Plenary of the Court of Cassation, by its aforementioned decision 1/2011, accepted the application of the seafarers, who sought the annulment of the appellate conviction issued against them by the Five-Member Court of Appeal of Athens.

The judges of the Court of Cassation held that, after our country ratified the Treaty of Lisbon, which has interstate effect in the European Union under law 3671/2008 and entered into force in Greece on 01.12.2009, the principle of not twice for the same matter, ne bis in idem, applies; in other words, no citizen may be tried a second time for the same offence. The judges therefore ruled that, according to this principle, those seafarers were prohibited from being tried again in Greece for the same offences, and that they had been wrongly tried and convicted, because they had already been tried in Italy, regardless of whether they had served their sentence. This was so held because Article 50 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which forms an integral part of the Treaty of Lisbon, requires the mutual recognition of judicial decisions of the member states of the European Union for the criminal prosecution and punishment of unlawful acts, in accordance with the Treaty of Lisbon.

Meanwhile, those convicted in Greece for a second time remain unlawfully confined in prison in order to be corrected.

A concise presentation of the case of the Greek seafarers will follow, with details of their judicial ordeal, which has continued for many years up to the present day, with the result that another fundamental principle of the European Union is also being violated: trials must not last for an excessive and unreasonably long period, with the main result being the destruction of the prosecuted defendants rather than any correction or improvement of them.