Law of Greece

Greece has a civil law system belonging to the continental European tradition, formed through the layered influence of Roman and Byzantine legal concepts and, in its modern codified form, of German civil law. The Greek Civil Code, drafted over several decades and brought into force in 1946, drew substantially on the German Civil Code, known as the BGB, while retaining elements of the country's Byzantine Roman inheritance. Public law rests on the 1975 Constitution, adopted after the restoration of democracy and amended several times since, which establishes Greece as a parliamentary republic and creates the Council of State as the supreme court for administrative disputes, standing apart from the ordinary judiciary headed by the Areios Pagos, the Supreme Civil and Criminal Court. As a member of the European Union, Greek law also operates within the framework of European Union law, which takes precedence over domestic legislation in areas the Union has authority over.