Greece’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Laura Kovesi, head of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), against a decision to renew the terms of three delegated European prosecutors serving in Greece for two years rather than five.

The Administrative Plenary of the Areios Pagos, Greece’s highest civil and criminal court, dismissed the appeal as inadmissible by a vote of 72 to 10.

At issue was the tenure of three prosecutors assigned to the Greek branch of the EPPO, Popi Papandreou, Charikleia Thanou and Dionysis Mouzakis. The country’s Supreme Judicial Council, the body that rules on the service status of judicial officers, had earlier set their renewal at two years. The EPPO had pressed for five.

The plenary did not weigh the substance of that dispute. It found instead that Kovesi had no standing to bring the case. Under Greek law governing the service status of judicial officers, only the officers themselves may appeal to the plenary, and only if they secured at least two votes, a minority, before the Supreme Judicial Council. In this instance the council’s decision had been unanimous. On that basis, the court held that Kovesi was not entitled to appeal on the three prosecutors’ behalf.

Arguing for the EPPO before the plenary, public law professor Spyros Vlachopoulos, who also submitted a written brief, rested his case on the primacy of European Union law. He noted that the five-year renewal had been decided for all European delegated prosecutors by the College in Luxembourg, and argued that individual member states cannot renew terms at their own discretion, a practice he said would jeopardize the unity of the European prosecution service.

Vlachopoulos also urged the court to refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling to settle, once and for all, who holds the authority to renew the prosecutors’ terms, given that the EPPO is a relatively new institution. That position was backed by the 10 members who formed the plenary’s minority, both on the question of whether Kovesi had the right to appeal and on who is competent to renew the prosecutors’ terms.

The Supreme Judicial Council is now expected to decide which other three prosecutors will be named to the Greek branch of the EPPO.