The Single – Member Court of Appeal for Felonies declared the invalidity of the service of the arraignment to the accused client of our company.

In the context of the criminal trial of a client of our company, before the Single-Member Court of Appeal for Felonies of Athens, lawyers Dimitrios Piperakis (Managing Partner) and Evangelia Kourti raised the objection of invalidity of the service of the arraignment to the accused, as well as the objection to the progress of the trial.

 In accordance with the provisions of articles 155-156 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, if the interested party has appointed a lawyer or a representative, service is also effected on the appointed lawyer or representative. Also, if the interested party or the cohabitant or the domestic helper or the doorman is not at home, whoever effects the service affixes the aforementioned envelope to the door of the residence and if the affixing to the door was effected because the persons mentioned above refused to receive the document being served or were absent or were not existing, a copy of this document is served on the appointed representative of the interested party. Furthermore, any document of the pre-trial and court proceedings, as well as any other criminal document, is validly served on the accused if the service is effected in a physical manner at the address of his residence or stay that was last declared by him or his lawyer during his examination in the preliminary examination or the preliminary investigation or the interrogation.

In the above case, the arraignment summoning the accused to be tried before the competent Court had not been served at all on the accused himself, but it had only been served on the attorney-at-law and representative appointed by the accused since the interrogation stage, without any change of address of the latter having occurred until the date of the trial.

The failure to serve the arraignment document on the defendant constitutes an invalidity of the proceedings and is not remedied by the mere fact of serving the document on the attorney-at-law. In addition, this invalidity must be raised as an objection in court and even before the beginning of the evidentiary proceedings.

 After the above objection of invalidity and the objection to the progress of the trial were duly and timely raised, the Court found that the arraignment document had not been served on the defendant, declared the service of the arraignment document invalid and the progress of the trial inadmissible.

The declaration of the above by the Court is crucial for each accused because his defense rights are preserved, especially the fact that he must personally receive lawful and full knowledge of the accusation, which is a necessary condition for a fair trial.