On the way to abolishing accrediatation for foreign colleges

The amendment, passed by the Justice Ministry, foresees the recognition of diplomas of European universities or colleges as equivalent of Greek diplomas for lawyers. This means that from now own, European college and university graduates will not be obliged to go through the recognition process of National Academic Recognition Information Center, DOETAP (former DIKATSA) any more in order to enroll in Greek Bar Associations.

This change is probably leading the way for more college graduates to do away with the DOETAP process. The most likely candidates will be those of polytechnic schools, medical schools and economic schools and universities.

The responsibility of checking the adequacy of candidates will pass to their Chambers (i.e. the Technical Chamber, the Medical Chamber etc.).

Up to now, students that were graduates of any university or college abroad had to get a recognition of their diploma from DOETAP in order enroll in any Chamber or in Bar Association, with college degrees not being considered in any way equivalent to university degrees.

For instance, a student studying law in a college at the UK, in order to be able to become a member of any Bar Association of the country, had to go and work for a minimum of 12 months in Cyprus (where college degrees are considered equivalent to university degrees) and then to enroll to a Greek Bar Association and therefore be able to work as a lawyer in the country.