Innovative amendments aiming for final court decisions to be published within 730 days instead of the 1,492 required today and for lawsuits, complaints, etc., to be tried within eight months in the country’s largest court, the Athens Court of First Instance, are introduced in the Code of Civil Procedure (CCP) by the Minister of Justice, Giorgos Floridis. Another significant change is the deadline for issuing definitive decisions by the courts within 350 days, down from the current 730.

The bill will be submitted to Parliament in the near future so that decisions are issued through fast-track procedures and the duration of the pretrial stage is significantly reduced. Moreover, according to another amendment of the CCP, starting next September, wills will now be published by notaries within a period of 2 to 7 days, compared to the current 300 days.

The new CCP model, which will be implemented from the start of the new judicial year, i.e., from September 16, 2025, concerns the vast majority of cases that occupy the courts, such as financial disputes, compensation, foreclosures, divorces, family disputes in general, inheritance, wills, etc.

Alignment with Europe

The goal of the Ministry of Justice is for Greece, in a short period of time, to reach the statistical standards of the Council of Europe in terms of decision publication time, so that within 8 months from the day of filing, lawsuits will be heard and within 730 days, i.e., less than two years, final decisions will be issued. In other words, final decisions will be issued in almost half the time currently required.

It should be clarified that final decisions are those that are not subject to default judgment appeal or appeal (e.g., Supreme Court decisions), while definitive decisions are those that conclude the trial at every jurisdictional level (Court of First Instance and Court of Appeal).

According to the Council of Europe’s data, apart from Greece, it takes 350 days to issue a definitive decision and 730 days to issue a final decision.

The ultimate goal of the new CCP model, according to Mr. Floridis, is to bring the decision issuance time within the EU average over a four-year horizon.

At the same time, decision issuance times are defined per court level. Thus, at first instance (courts of first instance) the time required for issuing a definitive decision will be:

■ 6 months for regular procedure cases,
■ 4 months for voluntary jurisdiction cases,
■ 1 month for interim measures cases.

The objective of the Ministry of Justice is for second-instance decisions (appeals) to be issued at most within 2 years. Therefore, the new CCP provisions foresee, among other things, a universal ban on granting postponements. Appeals will now be filed directly with the appellate courts and not with the courts of first instance to then be transferred administratively to the appellate courts, and the hearing date will be set immediately upon filing the pleading.

Also, the subject-matter jurisdiction of multi-member courts of first instance is increased for hearing appeals up to the amount of €80,000, which translates into transferring casework from the appellate courts to the multi-member courts of first instance.

At the third and final level, the Supreme Court, the written report of the Supreme Court judge assigned to a case before its hearing is reinstated. Thus, judges and lawyers will have a clear picture of the case being discussed, and the time for closed-door deliberations will be shortened, as the Supreme Court judges will have a full understanding of the legal issues involved and the history of the case under review.

From now on, filing an annulment or other pleading will be done directly with the Supreme Court rather than first with the Court of Appeal and then forwarded. With this new process, the scheduling time for Supreme Court cases is accelerated.

Simultaneously, there will be a restriction on the number of pages for annulments, additional grounds, pleadings, memoranda, and suspension requests.

However, Mr. Floridis goes a step further to show that the government respects the citizen. The Minister of Justice is introducing a strict timetable, even under the threat of automatic disciplinary proceedings for sluggish judges.

In this context, a new provision is added stating that in the event of a delay in issuing a decision, the judge assigned to the case must inform their superior in writing, who in turn informs the Supreme Court and the parties. The purpose of this provision, among others, is twofold.

First, to allow for disciplinary control of judges who delay at the expense of their colleagues, as the case file will be removed from the slow judge and reassigned to another, and second, to protect citizens from unreasonable legal and attorney fees, reduce the loss of working hours, and minimize unnecessary travel by parties, witnesses, etc.

Reduction of pretrial duration

One of the innovative proposals of the new CCP is the establishment of exclusive and binding deadlines for both parties and the judges assigned to cases.

With the new provisions, the pretrial phase (Article 237 CCP), i.e., the time from the filing of the lawsuit until its hearing in court, is drastically reduced, as is the time from the hearing date until the issuance of the court decision, which until now, parties and lawyers have had to wait years for…

In other words, the time before a case reaches the courtroom is fully utilized, with a meticulous preliminary check carried out by a judge, so that cases reach the courtroom fully mature.

Under current practice, the initial file for a civil case closes after approximately 130 days, and then 2.5 to 3 years may pass without any judicial action — and, of course, without the case reaching a hearing.

Now, with the new procedural framework that will apply (establishment of new Article 237 CCP), upon filing a lawsuit, a hearing will automatically be scheduled within 150-180 days, and the exact date of the hearing will be simultaneously communicated.

The service of the lawsuit to the opposing party will occur within 20 days, after which a 90-day deadline begins for both sides to submit pleadings and all evidence they wish to include in the case file.

Then, the parties will have another 15 days to file rebuttals or supplements to the opposing party’s submissions, followed by a 10-day period during which the case will be assigned to a judge. One of the innovations in the CCP reforms is that the preliminary review will be carried out by the judge assigned to the case.

Under the new rules, the judge is required to conduct a pretrial review, and if deficiencies or errors are found in the file, the judge will call on the parties to complete the file within a set deadline. If the parties do not comply within the deadline set by the judge, a formal order will be issued to complete the file within a specified time.

However, if that deadline passes without action, the case will be considered concluded and will be removed from the docket.

The result of this entire process is the elimination of repeated hearings, since any omission or defect in the lawsuit will have already been corrected or supplemented by the parties before the hearing.

Wills to be published within 2 to 7 days

Another innovative provision of the new CCP is that wills will now be published by notarial associations, relieving the courts of a significant volume of non-substantive judicial work.

At the same time, citizens will be immediately facilitated in taking possession and ownership of inherited assets, and the time for paying inheritance taxes to the public treasury is accelerated.

Today, a will publication request for a death that occurred, for example, last month, is scheduled by the Athens Court of First Instance for February 2026. That is, publication requires 300 full days. However, under the new provision, publication will take place within 2 to 7 days. Indicatively, if a will publication request is filed this coming October, it will be published within a week at most.

Wills will be published by notaries via the electronic platform that has been created and will operate with absolute personal data security systems. This platform, as has been announced, will begin operating this coming September, specifically on September 25.

From this notarial platform, certificates will also be issued immediately, and inheritance acceptance by notaries and lawyers will take place almost instantly.

Transfer of new case types to lawyers

The implementation of Law 5095/2024 for transferring court case types to lawyers has had positive outcomes. Since March 2024, lawyers have taken on processes such as inheritance certificates, acceptance and renunciation of inheritance, registrations and removals of consensual mortgage prenotations, sworn affidavits, and processes involving the Court Building Financing Fund, etc.

This transfer not only benefited the legal profession but also significantly relieved the courts, especially first-instance courts, of a substantial volume of judicial work, while freeing up the time of judges and court staff.

With this positive outcome in hand, the Ministry of Justice is now taking another step with the new CCP provisions. It is significantly expanding the transfer of judicial work to lawyers, such as the review and drafting of payment order proposals by third-party lawyers, etc.

Enforcement and objections

Acknowledging that the Athens Court of First Instance faces significant delays in hearing objections — with trial dates being set 11 years out (in 2036) — the Ministry of Justice has introduced essential interventions in the enforcement chapter (all types of objections to enforcement, such as those under Articles 632 and 933 CCP).

To address this time-consuming situation, the Ministry is taking urgent action by creating an electronic platform for rescheduling objections, modeled after the platform for over-indebted households (Katseli Law).

Moreover, it will be mandatory to submit a rescheduling request for an objection on the platform. If an objection is not resubmitted on the platform, it will be considered as never having been filed and will be removed from the docket.

From the new enforcement provisions, both Mr. Floridis and Deputy Minister of Justice Ioannis Bougas expect that decisions on objections will be issued no later than 2 months from the date of the hearing.