Greece's top court ruled the EPPO lacked legal standing to challenge a domestic decision to limit prosecutors' terms to two years instead of five.
Greece's Supreme Court of Cassation, the Areios Pagos, has dismissed as inadmissible an appeal lodged by the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), headed by Laura Kövesi. The decision, taken in a closed session, was backed by a large majority — 72 members voted to dismiss, with 10 against.
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The appeal concerned a ruling by the 11-member Supreme Judicial Council for Civil and Criminal Justice to extend by two years the terms of office of three Greek European Delegated Prosecutors: Popi Papandreou, Charikleia Thanu and Dionysios Mouzakis.
The EPPO had sought to have that ruling annulled, arguing that the EPPO College had already decided to renew the prosecutors' mandates for five years.
In its reasoning, the Plenary found that Greek legislation governing the status of members of the judiciary grants a right of appeal only to judges and prosecutors themselves — and only where they have secured at least two dissenting votes in the Supreme Judicial Council. In this case, the Council's decision had been unanimous.
On that basis, the court held that the EPPO did not have standing to appeal on behalf of the three prosecutors, and the case was rejected as inadmissible.
The EPPO's arguments before the Plenary were presented by constitutional law professor Spyros Vlachopoulos, who stressed the primacy of EU law and the need for uniform application of EPPO College decisions across all member states. He argued that the five-year renewal had been decided centrally for all European Delegated Prosecutors and could not vary by country, warning that such discrepancies would undermine the institution's unity and cohesion.
Vlachopoulos also asked the Plenary to refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling. That position found support among the minority within the Plenary, both on the question of whether Kövesi had standing to lodge the appeal and on which authority ultimately has competence to renew the mandates of European Delegated Prosecutors.