Judges also to blame for sluggish system

Trials that drag on for years raise serious questions about the administration of justice in Greece, while the fines imposed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against our country almost exclusively stem from the glacial pace of the Greek justice system.

A long-standing issue, these delays have only been exacerbated by the pandemic and the accumulation of pending cases, mainly of a criminal nature, resulting from the shutdown of courts for months on end at the peak of the health crisis. 

In addition, there is a shortage of infrastructure in many of the country's court complexes, and particularly in Athens, including an absence of large courtrooms that are suitable for holding major trials with dozens of defendants (such as those for the deadly 2018 wildfire in East Attica and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party), which means that the length of important trials...