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Why is it that two parallel trials against the same people who are accused of the same crime are taking place in Greece and Cyprus?

- Each country has its own criminal law and justice, which makes parallel trials possible. Of course, within the context of the European Union and the attempts to complete the harmonisation in the field of criminal law, several steps have been taken in the Lisbon Treaty to recognize each other's final judgements that are not subject to appeal. That is to say that when a judgment is final in a country another country that has signed the Lisbon Treaty cannot initiate proceedings against the same people, i.e. seeking responsibility of the same individuals is not prohibited, but under the Lisbon Treaty, when there is a final judgement in one country the other one shall stop the procedure. There is an intermediate stage - that of pending court decisions, starting from the beginning of the trial until its completion. The Lisbon Treaty has not regulated this stage. I.e. the stage of the specific legal case – in Greece, the case is being heard in the second instance whereas it is pending in Cyprus. This means that there is no final decision in both countries but there is no regulatory text of what to be done in this case. It might be advisable, for example, to suspend one of the trials until the second one is completed. In this way, both parties are obliged to continue this trial until the court in one of the two countries announces a final decision. This trial has strongly manifested this problem, precisely because there is no regulation of pending lawsuits.

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