Supreme Court repeal: conviction for false accusation and false testimony requires strict reasoning of intent

With decision no. 423/2025, the 5th Criminal Division of the Supreme Court (Areios Pagos) fully overturned decision no. 3579/2024 of the Three-Member Court of Appeals for Misdemeanors of Athens, by which two defendants, a woman and her mother, had been convicted of false accusation, false witness testimony, and instigation of false testimony. The ground for the appeal was not substantive — that is, the Supreme Court did not rule that the defendants were innocent or that the original complaint was true. It ruled on something far more technical, yet equally important: that the Court of Appeals decision did not adequately explain how it was proven that the defendants knew, at the time they testified, that what they were saying was false.

The case was remanded back to the Court of Appeals, to be retried from the beginning by a different panel of judges. There is, therefore, still no final ruling on the merits.

Background of the case

In 2015, a woman ("the first defendant" in the text of the decision) filed a complaint against the father of their minor daughter, alleging sexual abuse of the child. Criminal proceedings were initiated against the accused, but he was not referred to trial, as the Athens Misdemeanors Council had previously issued a ruling dismissing the case in his favor. The father then filed a complaint against the mother and the maternal grandmother for false accusation, false testimony, and instigation of false testimony, as happens in the overwhelming majority of similar cases. In 2024, the Three-Member Court of Appeals for Misdemeanors of Athens found them guilty, imposing suspended prison sentences of 12 and 4 months respectively.

The convicted women filed an appeal, and the case reached the Supreme Court.

The gaps in the reasoning that led to the conviction

Behind the reasoning that led to the conviction of the mother and maternal grandmother in 2024^[1], a problematic line of reasoning emerges: since the Athens Misdemeanors Council's ruling dismissed the case against the accused, it was taken as a given (a) that the complaint was false and (b) that the complainant and her mother knowingly lied. The Supreme Court rejected this simplistic reasoning, which tends to become the rule in similar cases.

Logical error #1: "The case was dismissed, therefore the complaint was false"

A dismissal ruling does not constitute a judicial finding that the reported incident did not occur. The Misdemeanors Council examines whether there is sufficient evidence for referral to trial — a clearly lower and different standard from the substantive determination of the truth or falsity of an event, which belongs exclusively to the trial court on the merits.^[2] Non-referral may be due to many reasons — insufficient evidence at that time, difficulty in establishing the perpetrator's intent, or simple judicial caution — none of which is equivalent to a finding that the complainant is lying.

Logical error #2: "The complaint was false, therefore the defendants knew it was false"

Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that a complaint is objectively proven to be untrue, this alone proves nothing about what the complainant believed at the time she testified. A mother may in good faith relay what her child described to her, even if the court later, based on other evidence, reaches a different conclusion about the facts. Article 224 of the Penal Code requires direct intent — that is, the witness's knowledge that they are testifying to false facts — in order to establish false testimony. The objective inaccuracy of a claim is not the same as subjective knowledge of its falsity.^[3]

Logical error #3: "A bare statement in the reasoning suffices, without substantiation"

The Court of Appeals, in the Supreme Court's judgment, did not explain with which specific facts the defendants' knowledge of the falsity was established, nor what the source of that knowledge was. Instead, it relied on general statements and an operative part that merely copied the indictment. In practice, it used the outcome of the dismissal ruling as a self-evident basis for the conviction, without independent proof of intent.

"Intent, that is, knowledge of the falsity of the accusation, must be specifically reasoned, and specific facts from which it is inferred must be set out" Supreme Court (Areios Pagos) 423/2025

This flawed line of reasoning appears systematically in cases involving abuse allegations. The absence of a conviction of the accused is instrumentally converted into proof against the complainant, without the falsity of the claim ever having been independently proven. The complainant should be presumed to be acting in good faith until proven otherwise — that is, the burden of proving false testimony/accusation should fall not on her but on the State. The State must prove, with actual evidence, that the complainant knowingly lied, with specific facts from which this knowledge can be inferred. Instead, the complainant is placed in the position of having to implicitly prove that she is not lying — something she can never fully "prove," since the other party's non-conviction alone proves nothing in either direction.

Decision 423/2025 of the Supreme Court is important precisely because it refuses to endorse this "shortcut" in proof, requiring that knowledge and intent to lie each be proven separately, with their own specific evidence.

The legal issue: why intent must be proven with evidence, not rhetorical patterns

The decision is based on a specific requirement set by case law for crimes involving ulterior^[4] or direct intent: the perpetrator's knowledge and intent must be specifically reasoned, with a presentation of specific facts — not general statements.

• For false accusation (Article 229 par. 1 of the Penal Code,^[5] as in force before the 2019 amendment, applicable here as the more lenient provision), it is not enough for the content of the complaint to be proven untrue. In addition, ulterior intent is required: it must be proven that the complainant knew the complaint was untrue and had the specific purpose of causing criminal prosecution of the accused.^[6]
• For false testimony (Article 224 par. 1 of the Penal Code), direct intent is required: the witness must know, at the time of testifying, that what they are saying is objectively inaccurate facts, and not merely assessments, interpretations, or opinions that later turn out to be mistaken.
• For instigation of one of these offenses, the instigator must have the same degree of intent as the direct perpetrator.

A person's conviction for a false accusation cannot rest solely on the fact that their original complaint did not lead to the conviction of the accused. ^[7] Proof is needed that the witness knew they were lying, with specific facts substantiating this knowledge.

Why this matters for the debate on "false allegations"

The public debate surrounding Law 4800/2021 and mandatory joint custody is often based on an implicit assumption: that abuse allegations that do not result in a final conviction of the accused are, by definition, false or malicious. This assumption is legally incorrect.

Parents who report the abuse of their children often face criminal prosecution for false accusation, and their witnesses for false testimony, even though their original complaint has not yet been finally decided on the merits. A fundamental principle of criminal law is that every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty, with the burden of proof resting on the prosecuting authority, not on the defendant. In the case of a mother reporting abuse of herself and/or her child, this means that her good faith is presumed unless the State proves, with specific evidence, that she knew she was lying.

Decision 423/2025 of the Supreme Court emphasizes that strict and substantiated proof of intent is required in order for someone to be convicted of a false accusation. When this proof is replaced by an indirect presumption of guilt — that the non-conviction of the accused automatically implies that the complainant is lying — the burden of proof is effectively reversed in practice. The complainant no longer needs to be proven to be lying; it is enough that she is not proven to have been telling the truth. However, even if the accused is acquitted — let alone in the case of a case closure or dismissal ruling — it must still be proven with actual evidence that the mother's complaint was made with intent, that is, that it was false.

If this flawed reasoning pattern becomes established, it creates a powerful incentive for every parent, caregiver, and professional considering reporting a suspicion of child abuse to remain silent altogether, knowing that a possible non-referral or non-conviction of the accused could expose them to criminal prosecution and conviction.

The Institute of Child Health (IYP), the leading scientific body for the study and prevention of child abuse in Greece, has repeatedly pointed out that there is a huge gap between scientific estimates of the actual extent of child abuse and the officially recorded data from complaints — an indication that a large number of incidents of violence and abuse are never reported. In other words, in Greece there is a serious problem of underreporting of child abuse. Any mechanism that increases, even indirectly, the real or perceived risk taken on by someone who reports in good faith exacerbates an already existing structural problem in the child protection system: there is a very large number of children whose abuse will never be reported, precisely because the adult who could have spoken up chose silence instead.