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Coronavirus and its Impact on Contracts in Greece
- Edited by Ewoud Hondius, Marta Santos Silva, Andrea Nicolussi, Pablo Salvador Coderch, Christiane Wendehorst, Fryderyk Zoll
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- Book:
- Coronavirus and the Law in Europe
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 10 December 2021
- Print publication:
- 01 August 2021, pp 743-758
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Summary
To face COVID-19, this current, exceptional, and unforeseeable pandemic, the extraordinary procedure of enacting Acts of Legislative Content was followed in Greece, a procedure provided by the Greek Constitution in exceptional circumstances. Accordingly, as of the 25 February 2020 to 1 May 2020, nine Acts of Legislative Content were issued. They have been ratified by law and have been followed by a considerable number of ministerial decisions, necessary for their implementation. These acts contain provisions imposing measures for the prevention and limitation of the spread of COVID-19, including the lockdown of enterprises for a certain period as well as provisions for the regulation of such lockdowns to specific contracts. The purpose of the present contribution is to briefly present these provisions as well as the provisions of the Greek Civil Code which apply when events of force majeure, such as the pandemic of the COVID-19, occur.
INTRODUCTION
A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance, across multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of people. A widespread endemic disease with a stable number of infected people is not a pandemic. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected people, such as recurrences of seasonal influenza, are generally excluded from the definition of “pandemic”, as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe, rather than being spread worldwide. After the 1918 influenza pandemic (Spanish flu), COVID-19 was added on the list of the current pandemics.
The 2019 – 2020 COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a profound negative effect on the global economy, potentially for years to come, with substantial drops in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), accompanied by increases in unemployment noted around the world. Apart from its impact on health, the coronavirus has induced a lockdown of economic life in the majority of countries around the world, having a serious impact on everyday life with adverse effects on all aspects of it.
To face COVID-19, this current, exceptional and unforeseeable pandemic, the extraordinary procedure of enacting Acts of Legislative Content was followed in Greece, a procedure provided by the Greek Constitution in exceptional circumstances.
Greece
- Edited by Israel Gilead, Bjarte Askeland
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- Book:
- Prescription in Tort Law
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 22 December 2020
- Print publication:
- 14 August 2020, pp 379-412
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
The Greek Civil Code devotes a whole chapter (chapter 10, arts 247– 280 GCC) to prescription and peremption.The provisions on prescription apply to all kinds of claims, unless otherwise provided. More particularly, arts 247– 278 GCC refer to the prescription of claims and arts 279 and 280 GCC to peremption, to which, as art 279 GCC provides, the provisions on prescription also apply by analogy. In contrast to Roman Law, where prescription was an institution of a more general nature, which had as a consequence the acquisition, loss and deactivation of rights due to their exercise or omission to exercise (praescriptio acquisitiva or praescriptio extinctiva), the GCC adopts a narrow notion of prescription and, according to it, only the claim, ie the right to seek a performance from another, consisting of an act or omission, is prescribed (art 247 GCC).
DEFINITION OF PRESCRIPTION
The definition given by the editors of the book, ie that ‘Prescription in tort law is the legal institution that prevents P from enforcing an alleged right against D because of the running of a specified period of time on the tort claim‘also suits the Greek jurisdiction. Accordingly, prescription in tort law, as prescription in general, is the legal institution, according to which a claim can no longer be judicially enforced, because the claimant failed to exercise it within a specific time limit designated by law.
THE NATURE OF PRESCRIPTION AND ITS EFFECTS
According to art 272 § 1 GCC, which also applies to tort claims, when the period of prescription has been completed, the obligor may refuse performance. The claim continues to exist, however, as an imperfect or natural obligation, which means that, as explicitly mentioned in art 272 § 2 sent a GCC, whatever was paid without the knowledge of prescription may not be claimed back.
The lapse of time does not lead to P's claim becoming extinguished, but the latter remains intact. The effect of the prescription is to provide D with a procedural defence that bars P's ability to litigate the right in court.
Greece
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- By Eugenia Dacoronia, Associate Professor of Civil Law, University of Athens, Greece
- Edited by Miquel Martin-Casals
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- Book:
- The Borderlines of Tort Law
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 15 November 2019
- Print publication:
- 29 August 2019, pp 213-252
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Summary
QUESTIONS
TRACING THE BORDERLINES
A. DISTINCTION BETWEEN TORT AND CONTRACT
As the making of a contract creates a duty to perform and the commission of a tort a liability to pay reparation, both torts and contracts are, according to the Greek legal system, sources of liability. However, as explained in Greek doctrine: ‘Tortious liability according to Article 914 CC is primary, since the obligation between the person causing the prejudice and the person prejudiced is created for the first time in the form of this liability (for compensation) when the conditions of the provision are met. Liability for compensation from nonperformance of a contractual obligation is, on the other hand, secondary, since it presupposes precisely a pre-existent (primary) obligation between the parties, the obligation to perform the contract, that is, to fulfil the promised (original) performance.’ This secondary liability for compensation is regulated mainly in arts 330, 335 f, 362 f, and 382 f of the Greek Civil Code (GCC).
It has been stated that:
‘[T]he distinction between contractual and tortious liability is not as fundamental as used to be believed, nor does it stem from any logical necessity. Oft en, also, the inclusion of a consequence in law in contractual or tortious liability, such as of the liability of the producer for defective products in accordance with Community Directive 83/374 and the relevant provisions of adaptation of Greek law (art 6 L 2251/1994), should be a matter of indifference to the extent that a recourse to the general law for the filling of any gaps in the special regulation of this liability is not required. This distinction is based chiefy on the fact that, in the case of liability within a contract, we must accept a closer bond between debtor and creditor by reason of the binding nature of the contractual obligation which pre-existed and which had been created by the parties’ own will – a binding element absent in tortious liability.
Greece
- from PART I - PUBLIC AUTHORITY LIABILITY OUTLINED
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- By Eugenia Dacoronia, Associate Professor of Civil Law, University of Athens, Greece
- Ken Oliphant
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- Book:
- The Liability of Public Authorities in Comparative Perspective
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 27 November 2017
- Print publication:
- 26 October 2016, pp 195-224
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
OVERVIEW
Since the introduction of the Greek Civil Code (GCC), the Greek legislator has provided for State liability and liability of State servants or agencies, by including three articles (arts 104–106) in the Introductory Law of the GCC. A distinction is drawn between acts or omissions of a public character and those of a private character. In particular, art 104 provides that, for acts or omissions of State organs, which refer to private law legal relations or are related to its private property, the State is liable according to the provisions of the GCC concerning legal persons, ie according to art 61 ff GCC.
Article 105 of the Introductory Law of the GCC provides that the State is liable to pay damages for unlawful acts or omissions of its organs during the exercise of the public authority entrusted to them, unless the act or omission breached a provision in favour of the general interest. The culpable organ is jointly liable with the State, with the reservation of the special provisions for the liability of ministers.
The second sentence of art 105, which stipulates that the culpable organ is also jointly liable, has been tacitly amended by the Public Civil Servants’ Code.
According to art 106 of the Introductory Law of the GCC, the provision of arts 104 and 105 also apply to the liability of municipalities, communities or other legal persons of public law for acts or omissions of organs in their services. State liability in Greece, although regulated by the Introductory Law of the GCC, is administered by administrative courts and relevant legal writing is found in public law publications by specialists of Public Law.
HISTORICAL EVOLUTION
Until the promulgation of the Greek Civil Code in 1946, there was no legislative regulation of State liability in Greece. State liability gradually started to be recognised in relevant court decisions, mainly recognising liability in the case of a malicious act of a State employee. Therefore, it can be said that it was the influence of the Greek jurisprudence6 that led to the introduction of art 104 ff on State liability in the Introductory Law of the GCC in 1946, following the German model.
Contributors
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- By Nicolas Carette, Raffaele Caterina, Edmund Coates, Eugenia Dacoronia, Paul du Plessis, Hans Henrik Edlund, Magdalena Habdas, Dirk-Jan Maasland, Csongor Istvan Nagy, Sandra Passinhas, Oliver Radley-Gardner, Odile Roy, Jacobien Rutgers, Elena Sanchez Jordan, Judith Schacherreiter, Cornelius G. Van der Merwe, Lars Van Vliet, Alain-Laurent Verbeke, Bart Verdickt, Michael Von Hinden, Peter Webster
- Edited by Cornelius Van Der Merwe, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, Alain-Laurent Verbeke, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
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- Book:
- Time Limited Interests in Land
- Published online:
- 05 February 2013
- Print publication:
- 28 June 2012, pp xviii-xix
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14 - The evolution of the Greek civil law: from its Roman–Byzantine origins to its contemporary European orientation
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- By Eugenia Dacoronia, Lecturer in Civil Law University of Athens
- Edited by Hector L. MacQueen, University of Edinburgh, Antoni Vaquer, Universitat de Lleida, Santiago Espiau Espiau, Universitat de Lleida
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- Book:
- Regional Private Laws and Codification in Europe
- Published online:
- 30 July 2009
- Print publication:
- 16 October 2003, pp 288-305
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Summary
Brief presentation of the greek civil law before the introduction of the Greek civil code (GCC) (in force since 23 February 1946)
The Greek revolution of 1821 against the Turks, after which the modern Greek state was founded, marks the beginning of a new era in the history of Greek law. On 1 January 1822, in Epidaurus (Peloponnese) the first revolutionary assembly adopted a liberal and democratic constitution modelled on the French Declaration of Human Rights. This constitution as well as the second revolutionary constitution, adopted in Astros (Peloponnese) in 1823, designated ‘the law of our ever-memorable Byzantine Emperors’ as the main source of Greek civil law. In the third constitution, however, adopted in Troizena (Peloponnese) in 1827, a wish was expressed that all future codes should be based on French models. The influence of French doctrine and legislation in Greece may actually be traced to the years preceding the revolution, at a time when parts of the French commercial code of 1804 had been translated into Greek and were in use among Greek merchants, and to a Greek criminal code of 1823 based on that of France. In spite of the constitutional wish, the adoption of French models was confined to these two codes, and the Code Napoleon, though seriously considered, did not become a Greek civil code.