The Administrative Court of First Instance of Athens has notified the contents of the decision of the Court of First Instance of Athens No. A2847/2026 decision of the 25th Chamber (Trial Chamber) which awarded 420,000 euros in damages, plus statutory interest, for the mental anguish suffered by relatives due to the death of their child, brother and grandson, during the railway accident in Tempi, on 28 February 2023.

The administrative judges ruled that the Greek State for the tragic train accident in Tempi due to failure to supervise the railways and ordered it to pay monetary compensation (damages) to the relatives of the victim, with interest from the date of filing of the lawsuit and until its repayment.

From the day of the death of the victim and until the payment of the amount due.
More specifically, it was ruled that “Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport had improperly exercised its supervisory authority in matters of railway safety and contributed to the tragic railway accident.

First of all, the Administrative Court of First Instance, presided over by the President of the Court of First Instance, Christos Mousouros, with the First Judge Dimitra Dislidou as rapporteur, concluded that:

“At the time of the accident in question, the railway infrastructure was not supported by the following technological systems for the safety of train movement:

a) the side light signalling, which was already out of service between Larissa and N. Poron in 2019,

b) the telecommand and traffic control system, which, among other things, does not allow to automatically drawing incompatible routes, using which the IC 62 train’s routing would be made by the central operator and transmitted for execution to the stationmaster of Larissa,

c) an automatic braking enforcement system (including ECTS) for the case that the driver does not comply with the light signals, which, if it were operating and the route of the IC 62 passenger train was plotted from the descent line (either by the Larissa stationmaster or by the central telecommand operator), the next station from Larissa (N. Poroi) would not clear the descent line for freight train 63503 and the light signal at the exit from N. Poroi to Larissa would be red.

And if the driver of train 63503 did not comply and violated the red light signal at the exit from N. Poros, the ETCS system would activate automatic braking for both trains IC 62 and commercial train 63503, which would be stopped on the spot and

d) the GSM-R continuous and uninterrupted radio communication system, which has been installed since 2018 on the railway route Kiato-Athens – Athens – Thessaloniki – Premahonas/Eidomeni, but has not been installed on all new trains on the Greek railway network.

If the GSM-R system were fully operational, the driver of train IC 62 would have the possibility, as soon as he realized that he was moving on the descent line, to communicate with the driver of the oncoming commercial train 63503 and both of them would realize that they were on a collision course.”

Responsibilities at the Department of Transportation

In another part of the court decision it is underlined that the court is of the opinion that “the Greek State, through the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, has inadequately exercised its supervisory competence in matters of railway safety and has causally contributed to the damaging result through this illegal omission, although it could have been prevented”.

More specifically, the court decision points out:

“The findings of the ERA’s 2019 National Safety Authority monitoring audit of the lack of adequate oversight by the RSA were sent to the Department of Infrastructure and Transport, which failed to take any action.

In addition to being informed of the inadequate exercise of supervisory powers by RAS, the defendant Greek State, through the competent Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, and regardless of the specific information provided by bodies of the railway operator as mentioned above, should, in any case, have been aware of the non-existence of operational safety systems in the railway as described above.

This obligation of the Greek State is aggravated by the fact that both the non-operation of these systems on the railway and the insufficient, the ineffective and unsuccessful exercise of supervision by the RAS in the OSE on safety issues on the railway (already overloaded and with significantly outdated technological equipment as is evident from the findings provided) was manifested for a long time, jeopardizing the absolutely protected legal rights of life and physical integrity of the users and employees of the railway.

In spite of this, the defendant, the Greek State, by failing to exercise its supervisory powers as described above and, in this context, its guarantee role in ensuring the safety of rail transport, by failing to ensure, within the time strictly necessary, that the appropriate measures are taken to ensure the timely operation of the safety systems on the railways, a supervisory power which, however, is also exercised in relation to a public undertaking providing vital services of general interest, which is constantly subject to the dependence, supervision and control of the public authorities.

After the railway accident, moreover, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure launched an extensive campaign to upgrade, renew and in some cases extend the existing railway infrastructure, including, in particular, the adaptation of the signalling and telecommand system and the installation of the automatic train control system (ETCS).

As a consequence of the foregoing, the court finds that the Greek State, through the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, has failed to exercise its supervisory powers in matters of railway safety in accordance with the foregoing and has causally contributed to the detrimental result by its unlawful omission, although it could have been prevented.

In particular, this unlawfulness, in view of the defendant’s long-standing knowledge of the malfunctions in the safety systems already in place at the time of the accident, the lack of modern operational safety systems capable of preventing an accident caused by human error, and, at the same time, the lack of supervision by the RAC in safety matters was capable of causing, and ultimately brought about, the harmful event (death of the plaintiffs’ relatives) as a result of the rail accident that occurred.

The affirmation of the existence of unlawful acts or omissions on the part of the institutions and of those initially responsible (OSE and RAS), as those who are in principle competent to deal with matters of railway safety, does not lead to an assumption that the above-mentioned guarantee liability of the defendant Greek State is extinguished, which, on the contrary, as converging with the liability of the above-mentioned, remains intact. Any assertions to the contrary made by the defendant Greek State must be rejected as unfounded.

Consequently, the court decision concludes, the plaintiffs’ claim for compensation from the Greek State is established, by direct application of Article 105 of the Introductory Law of the Civil Code and Article 932 of the Civil Code.”

On the contrary, the Athens Administrative Court of First Instance ruled that “the action should be dismissed to the extent that it is directed against OSE S.A. and partially upheld to the extent that it is directed against the Greek State.”