A Greek government proposal to extend the terms of the officials overseeing the country’s largest courts has prompted a sharp response from judges, who say the measure risks weakening judicial self-governance and an important safeguard of the courts’ independence.
The amendment, introduced in Parliament by Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis, would keep the current administrations of major courts in Athens, Thessaloniki and Piraeus in office until Sept. 30, 2027. It covers governing councils at civil courts of first instance and appeals courts, as well as the leadership of several major prosecutors’ offices.
The legislation would also extend the standard term of court administrations to three years from two. The Union of Judges and Prosecutors, a leading professional association for Greece’s judiciary, said the provision amounted to another governmental intervention in a system under which judges at the country’s largest courts periodically elect their own leadership.
ΔΙΑΒΑΣΤΕ ΕΠΙΣΗΣ
The group said repeated legislative extensions, which have occurred over the past two years, were turning what was supposed to be an exception into a regular practice and could lead to the “effective abolition” of court self-governance.
Governmental Intervention
In Greece, the administration of major courts - including decisions involving their day-to-day operation - is entrusted to leadership bodies selected from within the judiciary. Judges regard the system as part of the institutional framework protecting judicial independence from political power. The latest proposal has drawn additional scrutiny because it applies to courts that handle many of the country’s most politically and socially sensitive cases. Critics have questioned the timing, noting that several high-profile proceedings are approaching important stages.
They haven’t presented evidence that the amendment is intended to influence any particular case, but argue that keeping existing court administrations in place for an additional year requires a clearer explanation from the government. The judges’ union also criticized the process by which the measure was introduced. It said the provisions affecting court leadership weren’t included in the original version of the Justice Ministry bill submitted for public consultation and were added before parliamentary debate.
Changes affecting the governance of the judiciary, the union said, should be subject to institutional consultation rather than introduced directly in Parliament. The dispute follows previous government decisions to extend court leadership terms in 2024. The union said it opposed those measures at the time and argued that repeated extensions undermine the principle of regular leadership turnover.
Under a law adopted in 2022, court administrations were given two-year terms, while rules allowing the same leadership to serve two consecutive terms were eliminated. The union said the framework was designed to balance administrative continuity with the need for rotation among judges. The issue has also become entangled with a broader restructuring of Greece’s judicial system. A 2024 reform merged parts of the first-instance court system, bringing former magistrates into larger courts in Athens, Thessaloniki and Piraeus.
According to the judges’ association, those judicial officers have yet to participate in elections for the administrations of the courts where they now serve. Extending the current leadership until 2027 would further postpone that opportunity, it said.
The union called for the extension process to end and asked the Justice Ministry to explicitly commit to making the proposed measure the last of its kind. The controversy comes amid a broader debate in Greece over the rule of law and the relationship between the government and the judiciary. While the amendment doesn’t change judges’ formal authority to decide cases, its opponents argue that control over how courts select their leadership is itself a test of judicial independence.
