Supreme Court Decision 1372/2022 (Fifth Criminal Chamber) – Temporal Criminal Law – Limits of Procedural Provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP) – Transitional Provisions of the New CCP – Legal Remedies – Timely Submission of a Cassation Application against a Convicting Decision Issued under the Previous Code of Criminal Procedure and Recorded in the Special Register of Finalized Decisions under the New CCP.
In 2022, our office achieved the issuance of Supreme Court Decision 1372/2022 (Fifth Criminal Chamber). In the above decision, the Supreme Court rejected the cassation application submitted by our opponents due to its untimely submission, as we argued during the court proceedings and in our memorandum—according to Article 589, Paragraph 3 of the new CCP, “Decisions and resolutions issued before the entry into force of this code are subject to the legal remedies and procedures for their submission as prescribed by the repealed Code of Criminal Procedure and are adjudicated according to the provisions of this code.” From the above transitional provision, it is inferred that a cassation application against a decision issued before June 30, 2019, but submitted under the provisions of the new CCP, is assessed regarding the fulfillment of the conditions for its regular submission according to the provisions of the preceding CCP and is adjudicated according to the provisions of the new CCP (Supreme Court Decision 209/2022). Furthermore, according to Paragraph 1 of Article 476 of the new CCP, which applies in this case to the adjudication of the pending cassation application, which was heard under its validity when the legal remedy was submitted, if among other instances, it was submitted late, it is dismissed as inadmissible. Additionally, from the combination of the provisions of Articles 462, 473, Paragraphs 1 to 3, 474, Paragraph 1, and 507, Paragraph 1 of the preceding CCP, which, as stated in the previous paragraph of this document, define the procedures for submitting a cassation application in this specific case, since the challenged decision was issued on November 28, 2018, that is, before July 1, 2019, when the new CCP came into effect, it results that the time limit for submitting the legal remedy of cassation against a decision is ten days and begins from its publication, when the decision was pronounced in the presence of the defendant, otherwise from its legal notification, in the case where this legal remedy is submitted with a statement to the Secretary of the court that issued the decision or to the one who manages the prison if the appellant is detained, and twenty days when it is submitted against a convicting decision with a statement delivered to the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court,
without the time limit starting, in any case, before the registration of the final decision in the register of finalized decisions of Paragraph 3 of Article 473 of the CCP (Supreme Court Decision 18/2021).Any untimely submission of the legal remedy is only excused when the report of its submission, prepared according to Article 474 of the same CCP, invokes the circumstances that constitute force majeure or an insurmountable obstacle that made timely submission impossible, as well as the evidentiary materials proving these circumstances. If the appellant does not invoke any such reason or the invoked reason is not valid, the untimely cassation application is rejected, as previously stated, according to the provisions of Articles 476, Paragraph 1, and 512, Paragraph 1, Letter a of the CCP, as inadmissible (Supreme Court Decisions 490/2020, 2049/2019, 244/2019).
