In Administrative Court of Appeal of Athens is expected to meet today the family of the little boy Marius, who four years ago, fell in his school playground, hit by a stray bullet, which a few hours later claimed his life.
The case of the 11-year-old student is to be heard in the second instance today, as the State has already lodged an appeal against the judgment of the Court of First Instance, which awarded the family the total sum of EUR 490 000. In fact, the discussion might have taken place earlier, but Marios' family had requested its postponement, pending the application submitted to the Legal Council of the State for a settlement of the case.
Specifically, on 15 January 2021, the relatives of the 11-year-old, through their attorney, Theod. Mandas, submitted a request to the NCC, asking the State to waive the appeal and they, respectively, from the interest and the 10% of the awarded capital. Several months later - with the result that the case was postponed to the Administrative Court of Appeal - the NCC ruled that there should be no agreement, a decision which was taken by a narrow majority of 6-5. And it is worth noting that the recommendation on the application was positive, as the NCC's lawyer, who is now called upon to judge the case, had argued that “there are no factual elements in favour of the State sufficient to justify a decision to reject the application and, consequently, to consider that this last solution is prudent and appropriate, since the likelihood of success of the State's appeal is very low, as is apparent from the statistical data, which are only indicative, combined with the particular characteristics of the present case”.
The compensation
In any event, the Administrative Court of First Instance, in its judgment in Case T-158/99, held that the Court of First Instance was not entitled to make a decision. A1465/2020, has awarded a total of 490,000 euros in damages to the family, namely 130,000 euros to each of the parents, 80,000.00 to the sister, 50,000 to each of two grandmothers and a grandfather. According to the court's reasoning, “ a) the aforementioned Municipality has been confronted, at least since 2013 (the year of the first operational plan), with a presumed increase in crime, the most specific manifestation of which is the large-scale phenomenon of illegal possession and use of weapons, whose particular dangerousness had already become apparent at the time of the incident, due to the incidents of injuries caused by unnecessary shootings recorded by the Greek Police,
b) despite the resilience of this upsurge in crime to the measures taken by the police to deal with it up to the time of the legal action, these measures were constantly decreasing, and in any case not increasing, without it being clear that this reduction in policing measures was based on specific evaluations and the finding of a certain decline in the phenomenon,
c) the defendant unlawfully failed to take the appropriate measures to protect the school event of 7.6.2017 through its police officers, consisting in particular in the establishment of a surveillance mechanism, even if discreet, of the schools in the disputed area, especially during events such as the one in question.
That omission is causally linked to the event at issue, since such a mechanism, consisting essentially of the discretionary presence of a police officer, would have been capable and appropriate, in the light of common experience and the normal course of events, of discouraging the occurrence of criminal acts, including the illegal and unnecessary use of weapons, in the vicinity of the schools in the area in question, and thus of preventing the tragic event at issue.
The legal incident marked the culmination of a long period of rising crime in the area in question.”.
The stray bullet
As of June 2017 to date, the perpetrator of this tragic crime has not been identified. It was 21:25 at the 6th Primary School of Acharnon during a school event, when 11-year-old Marios was waiting for the start of the theatrical part of the event, together with his classmates, while his mother, who was also a teacher at the school, was standing a little further away. From one moment to the next, the child fell unconscious in the school yard, bleeding from the back of his head. Via ambulance, he was taken to the Aghia Sophia General Hospital, where he died at 22:23, while the autopsy report revealed that the child's death was caused by a gunshot, which had caused a blunt trauma to his brain.
On 25.4.2018, the family filed a lawsuit against the Greek State, seeking compensation for emotional distress, blaming the latter for the criminal neglect of the Menidi area for a long period of time, although they were well aware of the increased criminality of the area. The pleading included, among other things, documents from the police authorities according to which from 1.1.2010 to 5.2.2017, 339 cases for unnecessary use of weapons have been filed, and from 2015 to 2017, 671 cases for disturbing the peace have been filed.
