June 2024

"Decision of the Three-Member Misdemeanor Court of Athens Declaring the Criminal Prosecution for the Crime of Embezzlement Inadmissible

A recent decision by the Three-Member Misdemeanor Court of Athens declared inadmissible the criminal prosecution against our client for the offense of embezzlement of particularly high value (Article 375, paragraph 1 of the Penal Code). Specifically, the court ruled that the deadline for filing the complaint against our client expired on October 4, 2019, while the contested complaint was filed on October 24, 2019. This is because the three-month deadline, since the knowledge of the alleged victim regarding the offense and the perpetrator is placed after the new Penal Code came into effect (July 1, 2019), starts from this knowledge (which constitutes the time of the offense), without any issue of application of Article 464 of the Penal Code ("Pending criminal proceedings that have been initiated without the submission of a complaint for acts that require a complaint for prosecution under the Code but were prosecuted ex officio under the previous law, continue, provided that the entitled party submits a statement within four months from the effective date of the present Code that they wish the proceedings to continue"). Therefore, the four-month deadline for declaring the continuation of criminal prosecution applies only to cases of pending criminal trials, when the complaint has been filed before the new Penal Code came into effect (see also Three-Member Misdemeanor Court of Tripoli 147/2021, NOMOS). In this case, the contested complaint was filed after the new Penal Code came into effect, with the time of the offense also placed after July 1, 2019. Additionally, the arguments made in court by the party supporting the prosecution that, in any case, there were reasons of force majeure that prevented the timely submission of the complaint, were deemed unfounded due to the lack of reference and proof of the alleged incidents of force majeure at the time of the complaint’s submission.