Thessaloniki Court of Appeal Overturns Ruling: Mother Did Not Obstruct Communication with the Child

The Three-Member Court of Appeals of Thessaloniki dismissed the compensation lawsuit filed by a father against his ex-wife and her father. The father sought compensation for moral damages, claiming that the mother was obstructing his communication with their child, defaming him in court documents, violating his personal data through photographs from video calls, and refusing to cooperate on matters of health and baptism.

At first instance, the Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Giannitsa had partially upheld the lawsuit, only on the matter of defamation, awarding the father 3,000 euros. However, after both sides filed appeals, the second-instance court annulled the first-instance ruling and dismissed the father's lawsuit definitively and in its entirety.

In court, the mother's defense, as well as that of her father's family (who passed away during the course of the dispute), was undertaken by attorney Ioannis Fokas.

A divorced couple's dispute

Examining the merits of the case, the Court of Appeals ruled that there was no obstruction of communication through video calls. After reviewing the videos, the court found that "any actual difficulty in communication that appears in some video calls cannot be attributed to obstruction by the first defendant, but rather to the child's age, combined with his hearing condition, as well as the conflictual relationship between his parents."

At the same time, the court ruled that the mother's statements in the court documents did not constitute defamation. As the Court of Appeals emphasized, under the new Penal Code, the judges, court clerks, and lawyers who read the court documents "are not, for that reason alone, third parties, in the sense required by the provision of Article 363 of the Penal Code, nor can the suitability of the fact to harm one's honor be considered established on that basis alone."

Regarding the photographs from the video calls submitted by the mother, it was ruled that they did not violate the father's personal data, since he himself was recording the conversations, and their use by the mother "was absolutely necessary for the defense of her rights."

Finally, the disagreements over baptism and health were deemed to be ordinary parental disagreements that do not give rise to compensation, while regarding the father-in-law, it was shown that the listing of a different surname in one document was a simple oversight. Following this, the Court of Appeals dismissed the lawsuit and ordered the father to pay part of the legal costs.