The latest major legislative development relating to family law in Greece concerns legal gender recognition. On 10th October 2017, the Greek Parliament voted in favour of a new law, which recognizes gender identity as a protected aspect of an individual’s personality and, therefore, allows the selection of one’s legal gender.

Law 4491/2017 “Legal Recognition of Gender Identity, National Mechanism for Devising, Monitoring and Evaluation of Action Plans for the Children’s Rights and other provisions” explicitly states that gender identity is the “internal and personal” way in which a person experiences their gender, regardless of the gender attributed at birth based on physical characteristics. As a result of this, when there is a discord between one’s legally assigned gender and their perception of themselves, a person is allowed to petition the correction of their legally assigned gender.

This option extends to all adults with full contractual capability. Furthermore, the new law allows minors over 17 years old to select their legal gender, provided that they have the consent of the persons exercising their parental care. Minors over 15 years old may also correct their assigned legal gender provided that they have the above persons’ consent and prior to receiving the approval of a special committee, consisting of a child psychiatrist, a psychiatrist, an endocrinologist, a pediatric surgeon, a psychologist, a social worker and a pediatrician as chair, all of which must be specialists in this area.

Consensual divorce procedure in Greece has now been significantly simplified by virtue of the new law 4509/2017 “Measures of treatment for persons who are exempted from sentence due to a psychological or mental disorder and other provisions”, which came into force on 22nd December 2017 and, inter alia, amended articles 1438 and 1441 of the Greek Civil Code. The main innovation of this new law is that a Court decision is no longer required for spouses wishing to acquire a consensual divorce. The termination of the involvement of the Court in the consensual divorce procedure is practically translated to quicker divorces, as instead of circa eight months to one year required previously, consensual divorces may now be obtained in less than one month.

«Regimes matrimoniaux dans le monde – Grèce» by Haroula Constandinidou and Konstantinos Stavropoulos, French legal journal «Actualite’ Juridique Famille», December 2017 edition, Dalloz

“Matrimonial property regimes under Greek law and common practice, Greece” by Haroula Constandinidou, International Family Law Journal, 2017, Issue 3

According to the Greek law there are two systems regulating the property relations of the spouses: The system of property independence (system of separation of property art. 1397, 1400-1402 of the Greek Civil Code) and the system of community property (art. 1403-1416 CC).

«Funding of the Hague Child Abduction Convention cases, Greece» by Haroula Constandinidou, International Family Law Journal, 2017, Issue 1

The services provided by and through the central authority of each state in relation to applications submitted under the Hague Child Abduction Convention are free of charge (Article 26, Hague Child Abduction Convention). However, a contracting state may make a reservation under Article 42 regarding any costs incurred for legal counsel or advisers or for court proceedings, except insofar as those costs can be covered by its system of legal aid and advice. When Greece ratified the Hague Child Abduction Convention it made the above reservation as regards the costs (Article 1, Law 2102/1992 pertaining to ratification of the International Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction). However, until mid-2013, all the requests regarding children under 16 years of age who had been wrongfully removed to Greece, were delivered by the Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights and were forwarded immediately to the Central Office of the State Legal Council which appointed one of the State lawyers to represent the requesting parent, free of charge, before the Greek courts. Since mid-2013, there is no such possibility. Each parent can only make use of legal aid, which is available in Greece under Law 3226/2004, provided the following prerequisites are met: According to the above law, legal aid is granted to all citizens of the European Union as well as to citizens of third countries who: 1)Have a legal permanent or habitual domicile in the European Union (only for citizens of third countries). 2) Have an annual family income which does not exceed two thirds of the lowest annual personal income provided by the National General Collective Working Agreement. The application must be supported by several certificates from state authorities evidencing the financial situation of the applicant and has to be submitted at least fifteen days before the trial for the award of legal aid. If successful, the applicant is granted legal aid covering all levels of jurisdiction including enforcement of any resulting order.

«New Law allowing same sex cohabitation agreements» by Haroula Constandinidou and Ioanna-Natalia Stavropoulou, Greek Law Digest, Nomiki Bibliothiki – published 2016, 2nd edition

International Relocation Guide 2016: «International Relocation of children law in Greece» by Haroula Constandinidou & Konstantinos Stavropoulos, Practical Law Global, Thomson Reuters – published 2016, 1st edition

“Precipitating the award of justice in Greece” by Haroula Constandinidou, International Family Law Journal, December 2015, Issue 4

New regulations are introduced in the Greek Code of Civil Procedure aiming to the precipitation of the award of justice without sacrificing the need of rendering a correct and fair court decision (by virtue of the recent Law 4334/23.7.2015 which will enter into force in Greece on 1 January 2016.

“On the road to same-sex cohabitation agreements” by Haroula Constandinidou, International Family Law Journal, December 2015 edition, Issue 3

New legislation regulating cohabitation agreements in Greece, including same-sex couples.

“Divorce dans le monde – Grèce” by Haroula Constandinidou and Konstantinos Stavropoulos, French legal journal “Actualite’ Juridique Famille”, November 2015 edition, Dalloz