Μake us preferred on Google The next step toward the trial of Christos Triantopoulos takes place Friday at 9 a.m. in the plenary session of Greece’s Parliament, where judges will be selected by lot to form the Special Court.
The case concerns the misdemeanor charge of breach of duty, relating to interventions carried out at the site of the Tempi railway disaster.
How the public draw will take place in Parliament
The members of the Special Court will be selected inside Parliament through a public draw conducted by Parliament Speaker Nikitas Kaklamanis. The procedure is governed by Article 86 of the Greek Constitution, the Rules of Procedure of Parliament and the law governing the criminal liability of ministers.
The Ministry of Justice has already forwarded lists of judicial officials who meet the requirements to participate in the draw.
The Special Court: 13 regular and six alternate members
Seven regular and three alternate members will be selected from the Supreme Court, Greece’s highest civil and criminal court. Six regular and three alternate members will be drawn from the Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court.
The prosecutor of the Special Court and the prosecutor’s alternate will then be selected from the Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court.
The judicial panel will therefore consist of 13 regular members and six alternate judges.
Selection criteria and the presiding judge
Judges who had been appointed or promoted to their current rank before the proposal to prosecute was submitted are eligible to enter the draw.
Judges who participated in the Judicial Council for the same case are excluded.
The presidency of the Special Court is also determined by a specific rule. It is assigned to the highest-ranking judge among those selected from the Supreme Court. If judges hold the same rank, the position goes to the most senior by length of service.
The precedent of the Papangelopoulos and Pappas cases
A similar procedure took place on July 12, 2022, when then-Parliament Speaker Konstantinos Tasoulas conducted separate draws for the Special Courts hearing the cases involving former ministers Dimitris Papangelopoulos and Nikos Pappas.
In those cases, each court was also made up of 13 regular and six alternate members, along with a prosecutor and an alternate prosecutor.
Next steps: When will the trial be scheduled?
Once the draw is completed, the trial will be formally scheduled.
After receiving the relevant minutes from Parliament, the president of the Special Court will issue an order setting the trial date, the location where the court will sit and the witnesses who will be examined.
The law provides that the trial date must be set between 40 and 60 days after that order is issued.
The deadline, therefore, is tied to the formal scheduling of the trial by the court and does not automatically begin running from today’s draw.
