multimonthly abstention lawyers from their duties in lawsuits dealing with specific crimes, such as a criminal organization, for reasons of legal disputes that they formulated, led the court in which trial of folly folly to proceed with the postponement of the trial on the case and in fact to the next June.

The trial, which began about a year ago, was essentially “inactive” for several months, as the judges began to consider the case, but the lawyers, as in other trials, did not appear, continuing to abstain from their duties.

The Ministry of Justice also did not make any legislative changes that could satisfy the lawyers and return them to the hearings, as a result of which the Folley-Folley trial has long stalled.

Before this impasse, the President of the Court, Maria Andreopoulou, decided yesterday to stop the process, which was already dead, and postpone the trial until June.

danger signal

The President, who made a splash with her decision, stressed, justifying the court’s decision to postpone the trial, on the risk of the statute of limitations expiring if the situation persists, since, according to her, there are acts in the case under consideration that will soon expire due to the fact that it could mean for the effective administration of justice.

“We are being held hostage and cannot even consider other cases,” explained the President of the Court, Maria Andreopoulou.

“We are in a hostage situation,” the president stressed, “and we cannot consider any other cases either,” while she spoke of “an extremely serious litigation for the domestic legal order, which has an international negative impact,” which, in fact, has not been held for a long time .

Bar associations

The court’s decision by its president placed the responsibility primarily on the bar associations, which had switched to years of abstinence, canceling specific serious criminal trials, and the president cited the court’s great and coordinated efforts to clear lawyers’ cases by the competent bar associations to which they belong to carry out litigation, as well as the refusals of bar associations, which the court collected from time to time. The court, which proceeded to adjourn the case, consists, in addition to President Maria Andreopoulou, of applicants Giorgos Grivas and Anastasia Siomu.

Chronicles

More than a year and a half ago, the three-member Court of Appeal for Criminal Cases considered this case, the main defendants of which were Dimitris and George Koutsolyutsos, and a total of 13 people were in the dock on charges of falsifying balance sheets. , financial crimes and criminal organization charges.

The trial was interrupted due to the fact that the lawyers refrained from performing their duties in the courts of first instance, where cases are heard on charges of a criminal organization, due to disagreement with a legislative norm that does not allow a suspension of the sentence of a convicted person for a specific crime. be suspended and they demand that the relevant provision be amended.