Georgios Sarlis graduated from the Law School of the Democritus University of Thrace (LL.B., 2007) and holds a Master’s degree from the Law School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Criminal Law and Criminology (LL.M. with honours, 2013). In 2010 he was admitted to the Thessaloniki Bar Association and since 2022 he has been a member of the Athens Bar Association. He has handled various cases of financial crimes and has represented defendants in criminal courts (embezzlement, fraud, breach of trust, forgery etc). He was appointed as a special scientific assistant and assisted the General Inspector of Public Administration on criminal law matters (e.g. offences relating to service, such as breach of duty, etc.) (2018). He has also collaborated with KETHEA PROMITHEAS providing legal counselling and representing before courts addicted to drugs defendants (drug trafficking, robbery etc) (2013-2015), and with NGO ARSIS as a legal advisor to unaccompanied minors (Project METOIKOS, 2011, 2013). By a joint decision of the Prime Minister and the competent Minister he was appointed twice as Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice, Transparency, and Human Rights (2016-2017, 2018-2019). Consequently, he served ex-officio as the President of the Council of Pardons. He was also ex-officio member of the Strategy Committee for addressing money laundering, terrorist financing and the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (2018-2019), participating in preparation for Greece's Mutual Evaluation by FATF in 2019. During his term significant reforms were approved and introduced in the Greek criminal justice system, by the New Penal Code (Law no. 4619/2019) and New Code of Criminal Procedure (Law no. 4620/2019). He was a legal advisor of the Leader of the Opposition in the Greek Parliament, on matters such as parliamentary control, committees’ operations, and legislative work, especially on criminal issues and criminal law drafts (2019-2023). Previously he was a special associate of the Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights (now the Ministry of Justice) (2015) and a member of the Special Scientific Staff in the Minister’s Office of the same Ministry (2016). During this period, he was a member of legislative and policy working groups and a member of drafting law committees such as for the integration of Directive 2014/42/EU, about confiscation of instruments and proceeds of crime (Law no. 4478/2017, which was amending the Greek Penal Code). He has published in law journals and has participated in research on criminology, such as,

Case comment, on Order no. 144/2013 of First-Instance Court Prosecutor of Larissa, Poiniki Dikaiosini, 2014,
Case note, on Decision no. 1155/2010 of Council of First-Instance Penal Judges of Thessaloniki, Poiniki Dikaiosini, 2012
Researcher and analyst to EU-Funded research AGIS (Project JLS/2005/AGIS/123), with the title «Demand of Stolen Lives. Researching the Demand Side of Trafficking».
Researcher in research which results were published in Kosmatos K/Papanastasatos G., “Drug dependence and penal justice: evaluation of expertise report concerning the dependence of the accused in the penal trial”, Poiniki Dikaiosini, 2011.
Short term Expert of "Expertise France" in the project: «Inter-ministerial Coordination and Monitoring Policies -Facilitate Better Regulation and Codification in the framework of the EU-funded project ‘Support the Greek Public Administration Reform’ (PA Agreement -Agreement Number SRSS/S2017/037)».
He gave tutorial to undergraduate law students practicing on the semester lecture on General Theory of Sentencing and Elements of Correctional Law by Professor Nikos Paraskevopoulos (2013).

He joined Ioannis Th. Iriotis Law Firm in 2024.

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