Greece Defamation Laws: Civil, Criminal & Defences

In Greece, defamation is both a criminal offence and a civil wrong, but the criminal side narrowed sharply in 2024. Law 5090/2024 repealed ordinary defamation (former Penal Code Article 362), leaving insult (Article 361) and slanderous defamation (Article 363), while the Civil Code lets the person harmed sue for removal and money compensation.

Is defamation civil, criminal, or both in Greece?

It is both. Greece treats attacks on personal honour as criminal offences and as civil wrongs at the same time. On the criminal side, the Penal Code groups the crimes against honour together, and after Law 5090/2024 the surviving offences are insult (Article 361) and slanderous defamation (Article 363); the standalone offence of ordinary defamation, formerly Article 362, was repealed. On the civil side, the Civil Code protects the right to personality in Articles 57 to 59, and a person whose honour or reputation is unlawfully harmed can sue in tort under Articles 914 and 919 and recover monetary satisfaction for moral harm under Article 932. These rights rest on the Constitution, which protects human dignity and the free development of personality (Articles 2 and 5) alongside freedom of expression and the press (Article 14). A single false statement can therefore expose the speaker to both a criminal complaint and a civil claim for damages and a retraction.

What counts as criminal defamation in Greece after the 2024 reform?

The 2024 reform reshaped the offences. Insult under Article 361 now covers an expression that injures another person's honour or reputation and, in its current form, requires intent to insult. The basic offence carries imprisonment of up to six months. An aggravated form applies where the insult is committed publicly or over the internet and concerns the victim's private or family life, and that form is punishable by up to two years' imprisonment or a monetary fine. Slanderous defamation under Article 363 applies where a person, before a third party, asserts or spreads information about another that is false and that the speaker knows to be false, where the information can harm honour or reputation; it is punishable by at least three months' imprisonment, and a pecuniary penalty may be added. Because Law 5090/2024 repealed the standalone defamation offence (former Article 362), an untrue and harmful statement made without proof of knowing falsity now falls, if anywhere, under insult.

Watch out: Press-freedom monitors, including the International Press Institute, continue to call for full repeal of criminal honour offences. The 2024 reform dropped ordinary defamation but kept insult and slanderous defamation as imprisonable crimes.

How does civil liability work?

Civil liability flows from the right to personality and from general tort law. Under Civil Code Article 57, a person whose personality is unlawfully infringed can demand that the infringement be removed and not repeated, and Article 59 allows the court, on the victim's request, to order monetary compensation for moral harm and the publication of a decision restoring the truth. The general tort provisions back these remedies: Article 914 imposes liability for unlawful and culpable damage, Article 919 covers harm caused intentionally in a manner contrary to good morals, and Article 932 lets the court award reasonable monetary satisfaction for non-pecuniary (moral) harm. Greek courts assess moral damages on a proportionality basis, and there is no general statutory cap. Press defamation also runs through Law 1178/1981, which makes the owners and publishers of print media civilly liable for moral harm caused by an inaccurate publication; lawmakers repealed that law's minimum-damages provision in December 2015 and moved to proportional assessment.

What defences and privileges apply?

The defences changed materially in 2024. Before the reform, proof that a disseminated fact was true generally defeated a defamation charge, and the legitimate-interest provision (former Article 367) shielded statements made in the exercise of a duty or right or to protect another legitimate interest, which courts applied to journalistic, scientific, artistic, and political expression. Law 5090/2024 repealed the legitimate-interest defence and the related truth provision tied to the former defamation offence. As a result, the codified statutory defences that once protected speech have narrowed, and Greek courts now weigh expression against honour primarily through Article 14 of the Constitution and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights under Article 10 of the Convention, which gives wider latitude to commentary on public figures and matters of public debate than to attacks on private individuals.

What is the limitation period?

There are two clocks. On the civil side, tort claims for defamation generally prescribe five years from the date the injured party learned of both the damage and the person liable, subject to a long-stop of twenty years from the wrongful act, under the Civil Code limitation rules. On the criminal side, insult and slanderous defamation are misdemeanours, so the prosecution is generally time-barred after five years under the Penal Code rules on limitation of crimes. Separately, because these are complaint offences, the victim must file a criminal complaint (enklisi) for the case to proceed, generally within three months of learning of the act and the offender. Anyone facing a deadline should confirm the current period against the statute, since limitation rules turn on the precise classification of the offence.

How is online defamation treated?

The same substantive law applies to statements made online, including on social media and in comment sections. The aggravated form of insult under Article 361 now expressly reaches acts committed over the internet, and the civil provisions in Articles 57 to 59 and 914 to 932 apply to online publication as well. For platforms and hosts, intermediary liability is governed by Presidential Decree 131/2003, which transposed the European Union's E-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC). That decree gives mere-conduit, caching, and hosting safe harbours, so an intermediary is generally not liable for third-party content if it did not initiate, select, or modify the material and acts expeditiously to remove or disable access once it becomes aware that the content is unlawful. The EU Digital Services Act adds further obligations for larger platforms.

How do you bring a defamation claim in Greece?

There are two tracks, often used together. On the criminal track, because insult and slanderous defamation are complaint offences, the victim lodges a criminal complaint (enklisi) and the case is tried before the Misdemeanours Court (Plimmeliodikeio); the victim may join the criminal proceeding as a civil claimant to seek damages there. On the civil track, the injured party files an action before the competent civil court, generally the First Instance Court (Protodikeio), seeking removal of the infringement and an order against repetition under Article 57, plus monetary satisfaction for moral harm under Articles 59 and 932, and may request interim measures. This is general information about Greek law, not legal advice for any specific dispute.