1. The Greek Council of State, as we know it today, was established by the Constitution of 1911 and began to operate in 1929. However, in modern Greek history, one comes across the institution by the name of “Council of State” at two more dates before 1911.

It was in 1833, under the regime of absolute monarchy, that the Council of State was introduced as a double-natured institution, that is, as a consultative organ and as a supreme administrative court. From 1835 onwards, the Council of State performed the role of a “King’s Council” (Conseil du Roi), which was quite important in a regime with no elements of a representative assembly. The most important moment in the nine-year history of the Council of State of the time was its active participation in the revolution of the 3rd of September of 1844, which led to the adoption of the Constitutional Pact of 1844. Nonetheless it didn’t cease to be considered as an organ associated with absolute monarchy and was therefore abolished by an express provision of the Constitution of 1844.

Later on, the Council of State was re-established by the Constitution of 1864 as a purely law-making body. In this form it operated from February until November of 1865, when it was abolished by a Resolution of Parliament since in the minds of the politicians of that era, it was still associated with monarchy.

The institution of the Council of State was established for a third time by the Constitution of 1911 with the aim to serve as the basic guarantor of the principle of the rule of law. This constituted a goal set by the first government of Eleftherios Venizelos. The French Conseil d' Etat was the declared source of inspiration of the constitutional legislator of 1911 and the basic competences of the re-established Council of State had to do with the elaboration of legislative proposals and draft regulatory decrees and also with the disciplinary jurisdiction exercised upon civil servants (the permanency of whom was also guaranteed by the Constitution of 1911). Notwithstanding the above-mentioned competences, the most important competence of the Council of State as Supreme Administrative Court was, without doubt, the receiving of applications of annulment of individual or normative administrative acts. However, due to the political circumstances of that era, the involvement of the country in the Balkan wars, the First World War and the expedition to Asia Minor, the first sitting of the Council of State in its contemporary form didn’t take place until May 1929. The competences of the Court were guaranteed by the Constitution of 1927. As opposed to the Constitution of 1911, the Constitution of 1927 contained no provisions regarding law-drafting capacities of the Council of State.

2. In order to evaluate the mission and work of the Council of State, one needs to take into account that modern Greek political history, especially in the period after 1929, was particularly disturbed by two dictatorships, the Second World War, foreign occupation and a civil war and was not settled until after 1974. The Council of State, as a supreme court of judicial review which rules on sensitive matters of public law, was not to be influenced by the political climate in which it is called to exercise its functions. Therefore, it may never have questioned political power directly, however, it has always sought to secure certain basic liberal principles, the same ones that had necessitated its establishment. Especially characteristic of this practice was the dismissal by the dictatorship of 21.4.1967, of twenty-nine judges of the civil courts. The Council of State annulled these dismissals on the grounds that the judges were not given the right to a prior hearing. As a result of this decision, the President of the Council of State at the time, M. Stasinopoulos, one vice-president and eight councilors of state were forced to resign from service. Nonetheless, even in recent time, there have been moments of tension between the Council of State and the executive power, due to the environmental jurisprudence of the Court.

3. The Greek Constitutions of 1911, 1927 and 1952 contained detailed provisions on the judicial power in general and on the Council of State, in particular. The Constitution in force of 1975, as amended in 1986 and 2001, refers to the Council of State in Article 95. At the same time, it guarantees the individual right to judicial protection (Article 20 par. 1). The basic competences of the Council of State according to the Constitution are: a) the hearing of applications for annulment of administrative acts, b) the hearing of applications for revision of judgments of the administrative courts, c) the hearing of actions brought by civil servants seeking recourse against decisions of service councils by which they are being lowered in rank or dismissed. Finally, the Constitution provides for a fourth, non-judicial competence, that of the elaboration of regulatory decrees.

4. The Council of State has sought to secure, by means of its rich jurisprudence, its basic judicial weapon, that is, the recourse sought by citizens via the application for annulment, from interventions undertaken mainly by politically irregular regimes, which, at times, gained power and aimed at the weakening of this recourse. For example, the Council of State has declared unconstitutional and rendered invalid, legislative provisions that did not allow for the filing of an application for annulment. But even during periods of democratic government the Council of State has guarded the rule-of-law principles by deeming as unconstitutional, provisions, by which administrative acts that had been challenged before the Court, have been retroactively validated or by which normative administrative acts, that had been issued without valid legislative delegation, have also been retroactively validated, or provisions that have required the prior granting of leave by a hierarchically superior authority to the interested party before filing an application for annulment. In any case, according to the case-law of the Council of State, a legislative provision that states that an administrative act issued in its execution, shall not be submitted to judicial review, cannot exclude the filing of an application for its annulment.

5. As governmental activity expanded and as the addressees of administrative action became more familiar with seeking recourse to the Council of State, the Court became increasingly loaded with cases, which consequently caused a delay in the process of issuing judgments. Based on constitutional provisions as formulated in 1975 and revised in 2001, the legislator chose to transfer competences to annul administrative acts mainly to administrative courts of second instance (in which cases the Council of State acts as a court of appeal against judgments reached by these courts) and also submitted a number of administrative-law disputes to substantial judicial review exercised by administrative courts (in which cases the Council of States acts subsequently as a court of revision). The increase in the number of pending files before administrative courts brought about an increase in the number of applications for revision. In addressing this problem the legislator established in the mid-90’s a condition of admissibility of the application for revision, pertaining to the economic object of the dispute. Nowadays, an application for review against a judgment made by an administrative court is deemed, in principle, inadmissible, if the economic object does not exceed 5.900 euros. Nonetheless, the increased number of pending cases constitutes one of the most serious problems faced not only by the Greek Court, but also by all Supreme European Courts. This problem is basically addressed by raising the number of judges in service, by setting restrictions in the exercise of the application for revision or by computerizing the work of the Court.

6. It is commonly accepted that the Council of State has performed its assigned role successfully. The press and the legal community often refer to judgments made by the Court on major legal matters, sometimes in a praising tone, other times with a more critical approach. It is not unusual that tensions, with which the political power refuses to deal directly, are relieved through judgments made by the Court.

Notwithstanding the great affairs of the state that the Council of State is called to rule upon, decisions reached by the Court on matters which may not attract publicity but are still of crucial importance to the addressee of administrative action, are of equal value. These decisions may have to do with a pensioner who is being refused a raise in his small pension by the insurance organization, or a low-grade civil servant who is unjustifiably superseded in service.

The profile of the Court has been hammered through all these cases, the Court itself has won recognition in the citizens’ conscience and the efforts of its founders have been justified to a great extent. It is therefore self-evident that a future constituent body charged with constitutional revision should be especially careful in an eventual effort to rearrange the judicial system, which could affect the role of the Council of State.

The Council of State is called today to confront, within the framework of its constitutional capacities, the living problems that a fluid political environment poses, whereby standard notions, well-known to public lawyers for decades, are rapidly changing. The Court is called to impose respect of the limits set by the Constitution during a time of retreat of state activity, to draw a fine balance between the unhindered development of private economic activity and the protection of public interest, to secure the constitutionally guaranteed, yet unstable, welfare state, to protect the citizen from the evolution of technology and the various methods of control and attendance of the citizen’s general activity. Contemporary problems may not be the same as the ones that the Court was called to address in the earlier years. However, the essence of the Court’s contribution remains the same as was defined in 1911: upholding the rule of law. The work of the Court demands from its members a high sense of duty, dedication to the mission of administering justice and serenity. The great challenge for both the statutory and the constitutional legislator is to secure the conditions for the unobstructed discharge of judicial duties, so that the Court meets successfully the demands of its mission.