The Council of State, Greece’s highest administrative court, annulled the operating licenses of three private universities along with the decisions establishing their study programs in full, a ruling described as a brake on the institutions’ operations.
The Third Chamber of the court, presided over by Vice President Diomidis Kyrilopoulos, struck down the regulatory acts covering CITY University, Keele University and Anatolia College, citing legal problems in how the three institutions were operating.
The case was brought by Panagiotis Lazaratos, a professor at the Athens Law School. In a statement, he said he welcomed the ruling and had invested significant personal effort in bringing the challenge.
“I am pleased to welcome today’s decisions, for which I invested a great deal of personal effort,” Lazaratos said. “May these decisions serve as a message that reinforces public trust in the justice system and in the ideal of high quality education for Greek children.”
Legal sources said that if both the Greek administration and the private universities take the necessary steps to correct or eliminate the legal problems identified by the court, the situation could be reassessed by the relevant authorities. What that reassessment could mean for the operation of the three institutions was not specified.
