Book Review: The Greek Penal Code – English Translation by Vasiliki Chalkiadaki and Emmanouil Billis
| DOI | 10.1177/2032284417737865 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| Author | Niovi Vavoula |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book reviews
The Greek Penal Code – English Translation by Vasiliki Chalkiadaki and Emmanouil Billis, Emmanouil Billis (ed.)
(Duncker & Humblot, 2017), ISBN 978-3-86113-794-8, 238 pp., €45
Reviewed by: Niovi Vavoula, Queen Mary University of London, UK
DOI: 10.1177/2032284417737865
Three years ago, I participated in a European Union (EU)-wide comparative project regarding the
imposition of minimum sanctions at the domestic level, which involved extensive desk research on
the Greek Penal Code. Throughout the duration of the project, one of the main challenges is related
to the lack of an updated translation of the Code into English. This made it difficult to choose the
correct terminology required in order to accurately encapsulate the essence of the Greek rules
without engendering misunderstandings. The only available translation, by Lolis and Mangakis
dating back to 1973, had considerable disadvantages, but importantly was utterly outdated. At that
point, the thought that a translation of the Code in English was necessary could not escape my
mind. Therefore, upon finding out that an edited volume including such translation was published
in early 2017, my enthusiasm could not have been greater.
The present book forms part of a series of translations of foreign criminal laws in the German
and/or English language, which is published by the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and Inter-
national Criminal Law and Duncker & Humblot. The series began in 1882, when the renowned
German law journal Zeitschrift fu
¨r die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft, edited by Adolf Dochow
and Franz von Liszt, published the first German translations of ‘foreign’ (non-German) criminal
laws. The original series, entitled ‘Sammlung außerdeutscher Strafgesetzbu
¨cher in deutscher
U
¨bersetzung’ (‘Collection of Extra-German Criminal Laws in German Translation’), was then
continued by the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg and
was later renamed to ‘Sammlung ausla¨ndischer Strafgesetzbu
¨cher in deutscher U
¨bersetzung’
(‘Collection of Foreign Criminal Laws in German Translation’).
Starting with the volume reviewed in this article, the series will be from now on known as
‘Sammlung ausla¨ndischer Strafgesetzbu
¨cher in U
¨bersetzung/Collection of Foreign Criminal Laws
in Translation’, since, as mentioned by Professor Dr Dr h.c. mult. Ulrich Sieber in his foreword, the
present volume constitutes the first English translation of a non-German legal text within the
framework of this particular series; thus continuing and further promoting the efforts to make
foreign criminal legislation accessible to legal scholars.
The project ‘Translation of the Greek Penal Code in English’, which resulted in the publication
of the present volume, was conducted from July 2015 to February 2017 and was led by the editor of
the volume, Dr Emmanouil Billis. The book consists of the translation of the code, that is, the main
legal source of substantive criminal law in Greece, which was conducted by Dr Vasiliki
New Journal of European Criminal Law
2017, Vol. 8(4) 566–573
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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