CEDH · PRESS;FORTHCOMINGJUDGMENTS;ENG — 18 mars 2009

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .sC6C0EBF2 { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic; vertical-align:super } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   226 18.3.2009   Press release issued by the Registrar   FORTHCOMING GRAND CHAMBER JUDGMENT   20 March 2009   The European Court of Human Rights will deliver its Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Gorou v. Greece (n o 2) (application no. 12686/03) in a public hearing on Friday 20   March   2009 at 11 a.m. (local time) in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg. The case concerns the applicant’s complaint about the unfairness and excessive length of proceedings she brought against her former superior for perjury and defamation.   The applicant, Anthi Gorou, is a Greek national who was born in 1957 and lives in Brussels. She is a civil servant in the Greek Ministry of National Education and at the relevant time she was working in Stuttgart on secondment to the Bureau for the primary education of Greek children abroad. On 2 June 1998 she filed a criminal complaint for perjury and defamation against her immediate superior, with an application to join the proceedings as a civil party. She accused her superior of stating, in connection with an administrative investigation opened against her, that she did not observe working hours and did not get on well with her colleagues. On 26   September 2001, after hearing representations from the applicant in open court, the Athens Criminal Court acquitted her former superior, finding that the offending remarks had been truthful and that it had not been the defendant’s intention to defame or insult the applicant. The judgment was finalised and entered in the court’s register on 5 August 2002. On 24 September of that year the applicant requested the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation to lodge an appeal on points of law against the judgment, alleging that it had not contained sufficient reasoning. By means of a somewhat terse note, the public prosecutor dismissed the request as unfounded.   Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicant alleged, first, that the public prosecutor’s decision dismissing her request for an appeal on points of law had not been sufficiently reasoned and, second, that the length of the proceedings had been excessive, contrary to the “reasonable time” requirement.   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 23   January 2003 and declared partly admissible on 14 February 2006. In its judgment of 14   June 2007 the Court held by four votes to three that there had been no violation of Article   6 §   1 as regards the alleged unfairness of the proceedings, and unanimously that there had been a violation of that provision as regards the length of the proceedings, namely more than four years and three months for one level of jurisdiction.   On 14   September 2007 the applicant requested that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber under Article   43 [1] of the Convention and on 12   November 2007 the panel of the Grand Chamber accepted that request. A public hearing was held in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 11 June 2008.   The press release and the text of the judgment will be available after the hearing on the Court’s Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).     ***   Press contacts Stefano Piedimonte (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Paramy Chanthalangsy (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 28 30) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Céline Menu-Lange (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. [1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer.