Statute of limitations

Greek prosecutors are sounding the alarm over the sense of impunity that will be created by the country's new penal code, which will reduce statutes of limitations for crimes and include provisions that will allow for the early release of large numbers of prisoners as of July 1, when the new regulations come into effect.

Macedonia's ex-Prime Minister and former ruling VMRO DPMNE party leader Nikola Gruevski is involved in a legal race against time that will determine whether he will serve his two-year jail sentence which was handed down in a first-instance verdict in May, or not have to serve any jail time because the statute of limitations has passed.

The proposed form for amending the abuse of office exceeds the aspects analysed by the Constitutional Court of Romania, which did not question the limitation of the scope of the crime, according to an analysis carried out at the level of the Attorney General's Office into the impact of the recent amendments brought to the Criminal Code by Romania's lawmakers.

Most of the 65 CDs containing the data of 1.3 million taxpayers that the Hellenic Bank Association had supplied to the monitoring authorities are to be archived, following a decision by the Council of State, as the majority of cases are covered by the statute of limitations.

The Independent Authority for Public Revenue issued a circular on Monday that effectively ends the hostage status of tens of thousands of taxpayers and enterprises over past tax violations that are more than a decade old.

An appeals court prosecutor on Thursday called for former Siemens Hellas executive Michalis Christoforakos and another 17 people to be indicted to trial in connection with the Greek state's acquisition of the C4I security system for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

The General Secretariat of Public Revenues has requested clarifications from the Council of State, the country's highest administrative court, regarding the statute of limitations on probes into wealthy Greeks with bank deposits abroad.

The government is seeking to bring the statute of limitations for liability in cases of mismanagement of state money down to 10 years, according to sources from both the Justice Ministry and the State Audit Council. That means that after a decade, it will no longer be possible to bring charges against a public sector official suspected of mismanaging state funds.

No statute of limitations can be applied to cases regarding disappearances in custody, the Turkish Justice Ministry has said following a parliamentary question by main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Istanbul lawmaker Sezgin Tanrıkulu. 

On the second day of the trial of former Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou, who is accused of tampering with the so-called Lagarde list of wealthy Greek savers, a prominent professor of constitutional law claimed that the charges have expired under the statute of limitations.