Criminal Appeals in Greece: Overturning a Conviction

Emphatically not. Greek criminal justice provides several tiers of review of court decisions. A first-instance conviction is merely the close of the first chapter. With the right strategic regrouping, the law gives you the right to challenge the decision and to ask for it to be reviewed in full by higher and more experienced judges.

Changing counsel after a courtroom defeat is an absolute constitutional right of yours and often the wisest move. An appeal calls for a fresh, new and more specialised pair of eyes. A criminal lawyer with a deep grasp of digital technology can immediately identify the structural and technical mistakes in the previous trial that led to your conviction.

If, at the first trial, your counsel confined themselves to general denials and did not scientifically challenge the validity of the IP addresses, the chain of custody of the seized devices, or the authenticity of the screenshots, then your defence had serious technical gaps. In cybercrime, the failure to separate the law from the computer science is the principal cause of conviction.

No — provided the remedy is brought by you alone. Criminal law is governed by the fundamental principle prohibiting any worsening of the accused’s position (reformatio in peius). The higher court is barred by law from imposing a heavier sentence on you or stripping you of rights (such as a suspended sentence), unless the public prosecutor has lodged a counter-appeal.

That depends on the effect the court gave to the remedy. If your appeal was granted suspensive effect, you remain entirely free until the new trial. If not — or where the conviction comes from the Court of Appeal — we immediately file an application to suspend the execution of the sentence, fighting to secure your liberty until the final ruling of the highest courts.

In cybercrime, reasonable doubt means the prosecution cannot technically rule out alternative scenarios. If we show that a third party could access your router over an open Wi-Fi network, or that your device had been infected by malware, then the reasoning that “IP equals offender” collapses. Under the principle of in dubio pro reo, the court is bound to acquit you.

The limitation period is one of the defence’s strongest allies during the appeal stages. Time towards limitation keeps running while the case is pending before the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court. If the period is completed before an irrevocable decision is issued, the court permanently discontinues the prosecution and you are discharged.

The appeal is the first and most decisive step in overturning a first-instance conviction. The deadline is strictly ten (10) days from the delivery of the judgment if you were present, or from its formal service if you were convicted in absentia. To understand the procedural details and the conditions, visit our dedicated page on the Appeal Against a Criminal Conviction.

The appeal hearing is a full retrial of the case from scratch. The court is not bound by the previous conviction. This is our unique opportunity to correct the mistakes of the first trial, examine the witnesses afresh, and produce crucial digital documents. Learn more about the procedure in the section on the Appeal Against a Criminal Conviction.

Yes. A conviction in absentia means the court heard only the prosecution’s side. By lodging an appeal within 10 days of service of the judgment, the case is reopened and the Court of Appeal is required to try you from the beginning, allowing us to present our full line of defence. You will find detailed guidance on our page about the Appeal Against a Criminal Conviction.

In cybercrime and sexual-offence cases, the technical adviser is the person who will dismantle the digital report of the Cyber Crime Division. Their presence before the Court of Appeal is decisive in explaining the prosecution’s technical errors to the judges. See how we organise the technical defence on our Appeal Against a Criminal Conviction page.

If the case is lost at the Court of Appeal as well, the next remedy is an appeal in cassation before the Supreme Court (Areios Pagos). This is a highly technical procedure that reviews the decision solely for errors of law and procedure, not for the substance of the facts. To understand how the supreme court of cassation works, read our page on the Appeal in Cassation Before the Supreme Court.

Emphatically not. The Supreme Court is a court of law, not of fact. It will not hear your story again, will not see new documents, and will not rule on the facts. It reviews only whether the appellate judges applied the criminal law correctly and whether the decision has the required specific reasoning. We analyse these limits in the section on the Appeal in Cassation Before the Supreme Court.

The deadline for cassation is twenty (20) days from the official registration of the finalised (fair-copied) appellate judgment in the special register. The great procedural trap is that the month of August is excluded from the calculation of cassation deadlines. See how the dates are correctly counted, so you avoid inadmissibility, on our Appeal in Cassation Before the Supreme Court page.

Yes, and this is an enormous advantage. If the original cassation application contained even a single formally valid ground, your new lawyer is entitled to file an independent pleading of “additional grounds of cassation” up to fifteen (15) days before the hearing, introducing the correct legal complaints. Learn how we fortify the cassation pleading in the section on the Appeal in Cassation Before the Supreme Court.

The dismissal of the cassation appeal makes the decision irrevocable in Greece and the sentence becomes enforceable. However, this stage amounts to the “exhaustion of domestic remedies”, which automatically opens the way to the European Court. See how we prepare for international vindication on our page about the European Court of Human Rights.

The ECtHR in Strasbourg examines whether the Greek State breached the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In cybercrime, applications focus on Article 6 (the right to a fair trial) and Article 8 (protection of private life against unlawful digital seizures). We analyse the Strasbourg case-law in the section on the European Court of Human Rights.

The deadline for lodging an application with the ECtHR is strictly four (4) months from the day after the delivery or registration of the Supreme Court’s dismissing decision. No extension is granted and the slightest delay leads to automatic rejection. Read the strict formal requirements on our page about the European Court of Human Rights.

A judgment of the ECtHR does not automatically annul the Greek decision, but it is the foremost lawful ground for a “reopening of the proceedings” in Greece (Article 525 CCP). The Greek State is then obliged to quash the old conviction and try you again before the Court of Appeal, in compliance with the European judgment. See how this is achieved in the section on the European Court of Human Rights.

Yes. The ECtHR allows the applicant’s anonymity to be protected (Rule 47 §4 of the Rules of Court) in cases of an exceptionally sensitive nature, such as sexual offences or personal digital disputes. If the request is granted, the judgment is published using initials only, safeguarding your personal brand. You will find full details on the European Court of Human Rights page.