Reopening of domestic proceedings suggested following a failure to act upon a request for a preliminary ruling by the CJEU: judgment of the ECtHR in Georgiou v. Greece

The judgment in Georgiou v. Greece (57378/18, 14.3.2023) is another application by the ECtHR of its doctrine on the obligation under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (right to a fair trial) for last instance domestic courts to give reasons, based on the relevant Luxembourg case-law, as to why they would not make a request for a preliminary ruling by the CJEU (Art. 267 TFEU) despite a request to that effect by a party to the proceedings (see, previously, among others, Sanofi Pasteur v. FranceQuintanel and Others v. France, Rutar and Rutar Marketing D.O.O. v. Slovenia, and Bio Farmland Betriebs S.R.L. v. Romania).

In the present case, the ECtHR found a violation of Article 6 § 1 on the ground that in its judgment, the Greek Court of Cassation neither referred to the request made by the applicant that the CJEU be consulted under Article 267 TFEU, nor gave any reasons why it considered that the question raised by him did not merit reference to the CJEU (§ 25).

The novelty of this case, however, lies in the fact that the ECtHR, relying on Article 46 of the Convention (binding force and execution of judgments), suggested the reopening of the domestic proceedings, if requested, in the following terms:

In principle, it is not the Court’s task to prescribe exactly how a State should put an end to a breach of the Convention and make reparation for its consequences. Nevertheless, it is clear that restoration of “the closest possible situation to that which would have existed if the breach in question had not occurred” (see Papamichalopoulos and Others v. Greece (Article 50), 31 October 1995, § 38, Series A no. 330-B; Vistiņš and Perepjolkins v. Latvia (just satisfaction) [GC], no. 71243/01, § 33, ECHR 2014; and Chiragov and Others v. Armenia (just satisfaction) [GC], no. 13216/05, § 59, 12 December 2017) would consist, in the present case, in taking measures to ensure that the domestic proceedings are reopened, if requested, so that the request for a preliminary reference is examined by the Court of Cassation. (§ 33)

Consequently, point 3 of the operative part of the judgment reads:

[The Court] holds that the taking of measures by the respondent State to ensure that the proceedings before the Court of Cassation are reopened, if requested, would constitute appropriate redress for the violation of the applicant’s rights.