OP-ED: Loosening the grip on civil society in Greece – NGO Registry rules quashed and referred to the EU Court

By Elli Kriona Saranti and Minos Mouzourakis

On 16 September, the highest administrative court of Greece announced that the main tenets of registration rules for civil society organisations working with refugees and migrants breach constitutional and human rights standards. Further provisions of the rules were referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling.

The Greek Council of State decision offers long anticipated relief against the government’s doubling down on a hostile environment against civil society in the last six years, specifically targeting organisations that assist refugees and often challenge violations at the country’s borders and beyond. The policy entails familiar features of rule of law backsliding: routine inflammatory rhetoric against those who defend human rights; unfair prosecution and protracted proceedings; and a ‘LexNGO’ of disproportionate, opaque and arbitrarily applied rules requiring both NGOs and individual members, staff and volunteers to register on the Ministry of Migration and Asylum’s “NGO Registry”. Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) and HIAS Greece were two of the organisations bringing the NGO Registry to court more than five years ago in early 2021.

The Council of State declared the NGO Registry unlawful on several counts. It held that the human right to freedom of association was breached by rules that granted unfettered discretion to the Ministry of Migration and Asylum to deny registration, that required organisations to publish details of their funders, and that imposed two-year bans on re-registration for those NGOs deleted from the registry. It also found the entire registry of members, staff and volunteers unconstitutional as Greek primary law lacked the essential conditions to be met by individuals required to register. This is a defeat for the government and its vehement defence of the policy both in court and in public.

The case was also referred to the CJEU to assess the compatibility with freedom of association prohibiting registration of organisations whose managers or representatives have been charged of any felony or convicted of slanderous defamation. These were enacted in a 2026 reform that also converted immigration offences into felonies punishable by unprecedented sentencing when committed by members of registered NGOs. Questions were also submitted to the CJEU on the compatibility with data protection standards of rules foreseeing the processing of the criminal records of NGO managers or representatives.

Within two weeks of the announcement, the Council of Europe (CoE) Venice Commission delivered an urgent opinion on the NGO Registry and urged the Greek government to enact reforms. This made an authoritative addition to a catalogue of concerns from international bodies, including the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee, UN special rapporteurs, the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights, the CoE Conference of INGOs Expert Council of NGO Law and the European Commission.

The prospective delivery of the Council of State’s full judgment in Athens will move the next step of the proceedings to Luxembourg. The implications of the case will also travel beyond Greece, at a time of intense democratic backsliding, contestation of norms, and need for civil society to organise, resist, and remind: Remind institutions of their duties and insist until they fulfil them; remind those who depend on our work that we are not going anywhere; and remind ourselves why we carry on.

Elli Kriona Saranti is a Greek attorney-at-law registered with the Athens Bar Association and works as Managing Attorney at ECRE member organisation HIAS Greece.

Minos Mouzourakis is a Greek attorney-at-law registered with the Athens Bar Association and works as Legal & Advocacy Officer at ECRE member organisation Refugee Support Aegean (RSA).

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.