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Greek case solution

THE FINDINGS OF THE GREEK COUNCIL OF STATE

The Council of State, in a majority ruling, found that according to the article 21 of the Constitution, the care for families of many children is related to the need of preservation and advancement of the Greek Nation and is not revelant, ab initio to the families of the foreigners (non E.U. citizens), living in Greece. Furthermore, the above family benefits are measures realizing the special care, according to the Greek Constitution, that families with many children are entitled to, as a motive to create such families, in order to deal with the serious demographic problem that Greece is facing. In accordance with the above, the Greek citizenship requirement for the children of the family, or the mother, as stipulated by the above article 63 of the Act 1892/1990 is not in contradiction to any constitutional provision or principle. In addition, the Constitutional Framers did not seek to provide protection to the families with many children, as a matter of a Welfare State care, but as a matter of a consistent demographic policy. Therefore, the above family benefits, being motives to create large families, are out of the scope of the Geneva Convention on Refugees and do not constitute measures of “…public relief and assistance” and the above Convention does not impose to the Greek State the obligation to grant the above benefits to the family of a foreigner, having the status of a refugee and living lawfully in Greece. Accordingly, the above family benefits, being of no reciprocal character, do not constitute the character of a property right, according to the ECHR. Finally, the above requirement of the Greek citizenship is not contradicting the article 8 of the EHCR, since this requirement constitutes an objective provision for granting the family benefits and does not violate the right of having a family or creating one. For the same grounds the above requirement does not constitute discrimination against the forei-gners and therefore, it is not in breach with the art. 14 of the ECHR.