According to the law, the partner of a deceased person with whom they were in a free union and had children is entitled to receive reasonable financial compensation for emotional distress under Article 932(c) of the Civil Code (Decision 1815/2019 MPA).
As pointed out in detail in the decision, the above provision of the Civil Code aims to protect not only persons who are closely related to the deceased in a traffic accident in accordance with the provisions of Family Law (spouse in a religious or civil marriage, children, siblings, parents, etc.), but also those whose psyche is equally emotionally affected by the loss of their loved one.
This category of persons also includes the partner of the deceased if they lived together in a free union and had children. Moreover, based on contemporary social perceptions, the traditional concept of married cohabitation no longer seems to be the exclusive form of family formation, while new forms of family have undoubtedly been created with equally strong emotional ties without the legal framework that was previously necessary.
A direct consequence of the above social change is the tendency of Greek lawmakers in recent years to move away from the narrow conservative assumption that families can only be formed through religious or civil marriage, following the example of other European countries. in recent years to definitively move away from the narrow conservative assumption that a family can only be formed through religious or civil marriage, following the example of almost all European legal systems.
Similarly, the European Court of Human Rights has also ruled in the cases of Saucedo Gomez v. Spain (1999) and Korosidou v. Greece (2011), in which it recognised that the cohabitation of two persons for a long period of time without marriage means the existence of ‘family life’ within the meaning and with the increased value expressly attributed to it by the European Convention on Human Rights. In any case, of course, the existence of a strong or weak emotional bond with the deceased is a real issue and is juSo, “innovation” is basically expanding the circle of people who are part of the family. The court has the power to decide that, in addition to the closest relatives of the deceased, other persons connected by feelings of love, strong friendship, and affection with the deceased, regardless of whether they lived with him or not. Establishing the right to compensation for persons other than the victim’s close relatives makes the judge’s job more difficult and, in any case, exacerbates the dispute between persons claiming “monetary satisfaction for mental anguish,” since the more persons establish such a claim, the smaller the amount that will ultimately be awarded to each of them.
In conclusion, the criteria that the judge must take into account in combination when deciding on the inclusion of a person who is not related to the deceased by any of the traditional forms of kinship provided for in the Civil Code are the duration of the relationship the deceased with the person claiming financial compensation, cohabitation, the birth of children, and any other fact which, in the judge’s opinion, is capable of linking the beneficiary of financial compensation and the victim with strong feelings of love and trust.dged on a case-by-case basis by the court.
