Michael-Constantine Stathopoulos

Michael-Constantine Stathopoulos was born in Athens in 1938. He graduated with honours from the Faculty of Law at the University of Athens in 1961 and earned a doctorate from the University of Munich in 1967, receiving the distinction “magna cum laude.” In 1972, he was appointed Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Athens. From 1975 until his retirement in 2005, he served as Professor in the Fifth Chair of Civil Law at the University of Athens and was named Emeritus Professor upon his departure. For nearly a decade, he taught contract law as a visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law at the Democritus University of Thrace.

Stathopoulos was the Rector of the University of Athens from 1983 to 1991. During his tenure, he advanced the university’s building programme, established new departments (including Theatre Studies, Music Studies, Communication and Media Studies, and Informatics and Telecommunications), and developed the Directorate of Public and International Relations and the Historical Archives Service. He represented Greece on the Expert Committee on Family Law at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and participated in numerous legislative committees, most notably the committee that reformed family law. This reform introduced equality between spouses in personal and property relations, equated children born within and outside of marriage with some exceptions, established consensual divorce, and introduced civil marriage.

Stathopoulos has been or is a member of several scientific organisations, including the Data Protection Authority (1997-2000). He served as President of the Union of Greek Civil Law Specialists, the Intellectual Property Organisation, and the International Association of Sports Law. He practised law selectively and was a member of the Legal Council of the National Bank of Greece from 1975 to 2000. He has served or serves on arbitral tribunals, both domestic and international and has also acted as a judge in the Supreme Special Court (1980-1982).

From 1994 to 2003, Stathopoulos co-edited the biannual legal journal “Critical Review of Legal Theory and Practice” with his colleague Professor Spyridon Flogaitis, publishing a total of 20 volumes. Since the early 1980s, he has co-edited the series “Library of Civil and Procedural Law,” which publishes monographs by young scholars, with 59 monographs published to date. He was the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Justice in the Government of National Unity in the autumn of 1974 and served as Minister of Justice from April 2000 to October 2001. As Minister, he introduced several laws, including Law 2844/2000 on synthetic pledges, Law 2915/2001 abolishing preliminary judgments in civil trials, Law 2928/2001 on combating terrorism, and Law 3028/2002 reforming sales law. He also established committees that drafted bills on the impact of biogenetics on civil and family law and the reform of bankruptcy law, both of which became law. He founded the Department of Continuing Education at the National School of Judges for the training of judges.

He has a prolific body of work, including nine standalone works and 125 studies published in legal journals. He has been a full member of the Academy of Athens since 2011.

Source: Academy of Athens