—Fereniki Panagopoulou, Associate Professor, Panteion University
I. The decision of the Special Highest Court[1]
Acting in its capacity as an electoral court, the Special Highest Court οf Greece[2] recently annulled the election of three specific Members of Parliament from the Spartans party, following objections filed against their official proclamation. The objections were held to be substantively well-founded, as the Court concluded that voters had been misled by the electoral lists of the Spartans party, which was led, albeit covertly, by Ilias Kasidiaris, in a manner prohibited by both the Constitution and the law. The Court thus removed the three legislators and held that they should not be replaced, thereby reducing the current number of seats in the Greek Parliament from 300 to 297.
II. The right to be elected
In accordance with the established case law of the Special Highest Court[3], from the combination of the provisions of Articles 51(3), 55, and 56(1) of the Constitution, as in force following the constitutional revision of 2001, it ensues that disqualifications from eligibility are regulated in a comprehensive and exclusive manner, as they constitute restrictions on the right to be elected and indirectly affect the composition of Parliament. Any deviation from the right to stand for election, as an expression of the democratic principle, must be directly provided for in the Constitution and interpreted narrowly. The rule of numerus clausus applies not only to the ineligibility grounds under Article 56 of the Constitution, but also to the powers of the Special Highest Court under Article 100(1). As a result, the ordinary legislator is not permitted to confer additional powers, and did not do so in either the founding law of the Special Highest Court (Law 345/1976) or the Electoral Code (Presidential Decree 26/2012). This is because, in a democracy, the general rule is that every citizen should, in principle, have the right to stand for election as a Member of Parliament.
In this case, however, the Court was faced with a unique situation: it had to choose between adhering strictly to either the letter or the spirit of the Constitution.
A literal reading of the Constitution calls for vacant parliamentary seats to be filled through substitution by alternates, on the principle that no seat should remain empty, while the spirit of the Constitution suggests that replacing Members of Parliament with other members of the Spartans party does not resolve the issue of an outlawed party being represented in Parliament. This is due to the fact that the alternate Members of Parliament are themselves affected by the same violation, hence substituting them for the annulled seats would not constitute a valid corrective action. This highlights a constitutional gap that would have become even more apparent had a larger number of seats been annulled.
Nonetheless, the Special Highest Court rightly held that the seats could not be filled by members of the same party, given the exceptional nature of the electoral violation in this case. As the violation in question did not concern only the Spartans party Members of Parliament who were the subject of the objections, but the party as a whole, it also applies to its alternates. As a result, a segment of the electorate that was represented by the three Members of Parliament who lost their seats will remain unrepresented for the remaining two years of the parliamentary term.
It opted to serve the spirit of the Constitution, interpreting the prohibition as a safeguard of the democratic principle. On the other hand, is it consistent with the democratic principle to say to certain voters that not only was their vote disregarded, but that they won’t get to vote again either?
III. Jurisdiction of the Criminal Court
The Special Highest Court departed from the first-instance decision of the criminal court, which had held that the criminal offense of voter fraud had not been committed. On 14 May 2025, the Members of Parliament from the Spartans party were acquitted on the grounds that “there was no evidence of any voter having been misled, nor any indication of who those voters might be or even how many were allegedly deceived.” According to Article 162 of the Greek Penal Code, “Anyone who, by means of false information or defamatory allegations concerning a candidate, or by any other means, deceives a voter either to prevent them from exercising their electoral right, or to alter their voting intention in any of the elections referred to in Article 161, shall be punished by imprisonment for up to two years and a fine.” No deception appears to have been proven.
The fact that the Special Highest Court ruled in the absence of supporting evidence raises concerns. In this case, the criminal judgment in question is a first-instance, non-final decision, against which the public prosecutor has lodged an appeal. Moreover, there is no express provision stipulating that the electoral court be bound by acquittals issued in criminal proceedings, particularly when the objective and subjective elements of electoral and criminal rules differ significantly. As a result, two courts have reached entirely different conclusions on a matter of considerable importance.
IV. Two-tier members of Parliament
The Special Highest Court held that its ruling applies solely to the results of the constituencies contested through the specific objections brought before it. It does not, by contrast, apply to other constituencies for which no objections were filed and where the election results have been declared final and irrevocable. This approach is consistent with both the letter and the spirit of electoral judicial review proceedings, as rulings are generally confined to resolving only the contested issue and may not extend beyond the matters explicitly raised before the Court.
Nevertheless, this creates a paradox, as members of the same party now effectively fall into two categories: three Members of Parliament lost their seats, while the rest retained theirs, despite no substantive difference in circumstances. The Special Highest Court had no means to remedy this inconsistency.
V. Non-replacement of parliamentary seats
The annulment of three seats resulted in their vacation without replacement. According to the Special Highest Court, “The contested seats held by the respondents to the objection shall remain vacant.” For the first time in history, Parliament is now operating with 297 members instead of 300 – and this is precisely what the legislator intended to prevent. Law 3231/2004, as amended by Law 3434/2006, provides that blank ballots are not counted among the valid votes for the purpose of calculating the parliamentary distribution of seats. Following the explanatory memorandum of the Hellenic Parliament, this means that blank ballots are excluded from the electoral contest and are regarded as invalid. The decision for Parliament to function with 297 members instead of 300 was far from self-evident.
There were three possible alternatives:
1. Parliament remains with 297 members – which is what ultimately occurred.
Would we truly accept such a significant reduction in parliamentary representation?
2. New elections to be held for the three vacated seats.
According to Article 32(3)(b) of Law 345/1976, in the event of the annulment of the proclamation of Members of parliament, the Special Highest Court may, in view of the nature of the electoral violation, deem a repeat vote unnecessary.
According to Article 104(1) and (2) of Presidential Decree 26/2012: “1. Parliamentary seats that become vacant for any reason during the legislative term in a given constituency shall be filled by substitute candidates from the same party list and the same constituency, if such substitutes have been proclaimed. These individuals shall be called by the President of Parliament to fill the seat that has become vacant, in the order of their election. 2. If there are no substitute candidates as referred to in the previous paragraph, or if their number has been exhausted, a by-election shall be called in the constituency in which the seats were vacated.”
Under Article 53(2) of the Constitution, “a parliamentary seat that has become vacant during the last year of a parliamentary term shall not be filled by a by-election, where such is required by law, as long as the number of vacant seats does not exceed one fifth of the total number of the Members of Parliament.”
From the combined reading of the above provisions and the relevant factual circumstances of the case at hand, it follows that, since we are not in the final session of Parliament, the seats in question ought to be filled through by-elections, given that this is expressly provided for by Presidential Decree 26/2012. Notwithstanding the above, the Special Highest Court correctly held that the replacement of the seats by members of the same party was not permissible, in view of the distinctive nature of this specific electoral violation. The violation affected not just the named Spartans Members of Parliament against whom the objections were lodged, but the party as a whole; therefore, this necessarily included the substitute members.
3. The three vacant seats to be filled through a redistribution of parliamentary seats to candidates from other political parties.
The provisions of Law 345/1976 do not provide for the redistribution of the seat to candidates from other political parties in cases of annulment of a Member of Parliament’s proclamation due to their participation in a political party with an undeclared leader, which is a violation constituting deception of the electorate.
VI. Loss of parliamentary group status for the Spartans
The Spartans now remain with only two Members of Parliament, meaning they no longer qualify as a parliamentary group. Among other consequences, this means they will not be represented in the Conference of Presidents, which, under Article 101A of the Constitution, is responsible for selecting the members of the independent authorities.
VII. Conclusion
The above decision marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Parliament. Accordingly, this is a landmark ruling, as the Hellenic Parliament is left, for the first time, with only 297 members. A segment of the electorate corresponding to the three Members of Parliament who have been removed will remain unrepresented for the remaining two years of the parliamentary term. The Court was called upon to tread a fine line between the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. No interpretation could claim the sceptre of absolute correctness; the Court was forced to choose the least flawed of imperfect paths and, in my view, it chose rightly. The reason for this is because the liberal nature of political parties requires the State to remain vigilant in its defense of democratic institutions. Given that the Spartans party had already been barred from participating in the most recent European elections, tolerating their continued presence in the national parliament could no longer be considered a legally acceptable course of action.
Suggested citation: Fereniki Panagopoulou, Landmark Ruling Issued by the Special Highest Court of Greece: Annulment of Parliamentary Seats without Replacement, Int’l J. Const. L. Blog, Jul. 17, 2025, at: http://www.iconnectblog.com/landmark-ruling-issued-by-the-special-highest-court-of-greece-annulment-of-parliamentary-seats-without-replacement/
[1] The commentary is based on the published summary of the decision. The author reserves the right to offer a more detailed analysis following the full publication of the Court’s decision.
[2] The Special Highest Court is provided for in Article 100 of the Constitution and has special jurisdiction to rule, among other things, on the Verification of the validity and returns of a referendum, the incompatibility or the forfeiture of office by a Member of Parliament, the Settlement of any conflict between the courts and the administrative authorities, or between the Supreme Administrative Court and the ordinary administrative courts on one hand and the civil and criminal courts on the other, or between the Court of Audit and any other court, the Settlement of controversies on whether the content of a statute enacted by Parliament is contrary to the Constitution, or on the interpretation of provisions of such a statute when conflicting judgments have been pronounced by the Supreme Administrative Court, the Supreme Civil and Criminal Court, or the Court of Audit.
[3] Special Highest Court decisions 2/2024, 9/2010, and 20/2008.
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