Head of Greece’s top administrative court nominated for next president

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis nominated Katerina Sakellaropoulou, a female top judge, for the country’s next president, in a televised address on the state-run broadcaster ERT on Wednesday evening.

Sakellaropoulou is the current president of the Council of State, the country's top administrative court.

If her candidacy is approved by Parliament, she will be the first female president in Greece's history and will replace incumbent Prokopis Pavlopoulos, whose term expires in March. 

Skellaropoulou was born in Thessaloniki in 1956 and graduated from the Faculty of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 1978. In 1982 she was appointed as Assistant Judge at the Supreme Administrative Court (Council of State).

In 1988 she was promoted to Associate Councilor and served at the Third Chamber of the Court. In 2000 she was promoted to Councilor of State and served at the Fifth Chamber and in October 2015 she was promoted to Vice-President and assigned to the Third Chamber, as Deputy President. In October 2018 she was promoted to President of the Court.

While on sabbatical leave (1989-1990), she studied constitutional and administrative law at postgraduate level at the Paris-Sorbonne II University.

She was elected president of the Association of the Council of State Judges (1993-1995 and 2000-2001), Secretary General (1985-1986) and Vice President (2006-2008). She served as a member of the Central Legislative Bill Drafting Commission (1993-1995) and taught Environmental Law at the National School of Judges (2005-2014). Sakellaropoulou was appointed as a member of the Examination Board and the Board of Studies of the same school (2010-2013).

She was president of the Disciplinary Board of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2013-2015). Since March 2015 she is president of the scientific association “Hellenic Society of Environmental Law”.