Despite the fact that the legal professionals have always been the most important part of the elite that surrounded the power, the Lawyers, already from the middles of the 19th century, have faced various problems during the exercise of the legal profession, the most important of which have remained temporal: their great number, the unequal distribution of clients, the practice of law from members of the parliament, the lack of adequate courtrooms, the degrading behavior of some judges and the delay of litigation of cases and publication of decisions.
The creation of a collective body, a Bar Association, would effectively contribute to the solution of these problems. However, the lawyers who always protected the interests of the others when asked to unite for the protection of their own interests, it was impossible to communicate with each other and to exercise effective the right of association. Only a small group dealt with the creation and activation of Bars in the capital and the regions.
In Athens, from the constitutional guarantee in 1864 of the right of association until the legal foundation of the current Bar Association, five consecutive Bar Associations have been founded and disbanded, which had the form of association. The first attempt for the foundation of a Bar Association took place in 1865. This Bar Association, the longest in duration of all next Bar Associations, has been active for at least one decade, studying the problems of its members, suggesting legislative reforms and taking place in crucial national matters. All next Bar Associations founded in 1883, 1893, 1902 and 1902 had similar activity.
The individual character of the founded Bar Associations, the uncertainty for their future, the disputes among the members due to personal ambitions, the financial problems and the simultaneous awareness of the need for a Bar Association unanimously accepted from all lawyers, have contributed to consider as only solution the legislative establishment of Bar Associations all over the country.
George Roufos was the first to suggest in the Greek Parliament the legislative establishment of Bar Association in 1877 and the lawyers in Athens have elected in 1878 a committee composed of professors who drafted a bill. However, in the Greek Parliament the first bill was submitted by George Filaretos in 1884 and would be submitted again in 1891, without being discussed. The government of Charilaos Trikoupis in 1892 would prepare a new bill, to be drafted from the third Bar Association of Athens in 1894. This bill has been submitted in 1896 in the Greek Parliament, but will not be voted.
The fifth and last Bar Association of 1905, has focused in the efforts to vote this bill. After elaborating it, the last Bar Association has submitted it to the government of Ioannis Theotokis in 1907, which in turn gave it to the relevant parliamentary committee. The law 3317 about Bar Association, based in the bill drafted by Athens Bar Association in 1896, has been voted finally in 1908, 30 years after the drafting of the first bill.
In 15 February of 1909 the lawyers of Athens have gathered for the foundation of the current Bar Association, for the election of the Bar Council and for the election of the lawyer-members of the Supreme Disciplinary Council. The first President of the Bar Council has been Konstantinos Esslin and Vice-President Konstantinos Raktivan.
The Athens Bar Association has started its activity with great enthousiasm and with the hard work from its Bar Councils, with discussion and drafting bills, organizing congresses, facing the problems of the lawyers, creating insurance funds and trying to improve the practice of legal profession, has managed to impose its dynamic presence.
Ever since its foundation, the Athens Bar Association, the first and greatest Bar Association of the country, has runned a long way in the public life, strongly connected with the political and social developments. Scientific association and in parallel syndicalistic body, the Athens Bar Association –has started firstly as a few member body composed of men, members mostly of the bourgeoisie of the 20th century-today represents thousands of lawyers, men and women, jamming in the courts of Athens.
The history of the Athens Bar reflects the gradual enlargement of the legal profession and simultaneously the important role of lawyers and their various and multiple activities in the Greek society.
In its first period of action, the Αthens Bar Association, has been established, forming some standard and fixed characteristics of its internal function, but also its public profile. Hosted firstly in a courtroom at the Court of First Instance in Athens, the Bar has “wandered” during the period between the World Wars in various buildings. In 1937 the Bar has bought a part of the building in Academias Street in order to establish its premises, which were inaugurated in 1939. Ever since its premises have expanded and covered the whole building, as the adjoining building, in order to host its developing services.
One of the major targets of the Athens Bar, in that first period, was the consolidation of health care and pensionary rights of its members. In 1929 after lot of pressure and efforts of the Greek Bar Associations, and most of all the Athens Bar, the Pension Fund for Lawyers has been established. At the same time, in order to guarantee the medical and health support of lawyers, the Athens Bar has founded the Relief Fund in order to support the lawyers and their families in need of help.
In parallel, with constant contacts with the political and the judicial power, the Athens Bar, has worked for the amelioration of the working conditions for lawyer, pressing especially for the labour rights as for the establishment of the working hours of the courts. In this context, the Bar expressed its proposals for the better and faster attribution of justice in collaboration with the other Bar Associations of the country.
The Athens Bar Association has participated with intensity and persistence in order to solve the problem of Greek justice : the lack of adequate buildings and courtrooms, making suggestions at the period between the World Wars for the siting and construction of a Court House for the capital.
The activities of the Athens Bar Association, as reflected in the minutes of the Bar Council were multiple. The contribution of the Bar to the legislative work, with advice and recommendations to the legislative and executive power, with draft bills and draft decrees etc. has been very important. Its first representatives, the first candidates for the Bar Council, having a high prestige- could only be lawyers at the Supreme Court. They have acted mostly as counsels of the executive power, as co-creators of the legislation. The lengthy discussion of the Bar Council about the legislation and administration of justice in the new countries has been characteristic.
At the same time the Bar Council of the Athens Bar Association, according to the law, participated to the election and promotion procedures of the court staff, even for the supreme judges, while its representatives have participated rightfully to important institutions such as the local administration, eg. City Council of the Municipality of Athens.
A troubled decade
The dictatorship of the 4th August 1936 abolished the election of the Bar Council from the members of the Bar and gave it to the local Court of Appeals. The same thing happened for all the Bar Associations in the country. The appointed administration remained until 1941, and then it was replaced by a new one, appointed by the occupying government.
In 1943 the jurisdiction for appointing a new Council passed to the Court of Appeals until 1945, and then the old method of elections by the members of the Bar Association came back. The appointed administrations have continued the work of the Bar Council-being harmonized with the general policies of the occupying governments and have standed for the professional and syndicalistical rights of the lawyers of Athens. In 1941 the Fund of Social Care began to work, while during the period of occupation a Purchasing Cooperative began to work for the support of the lawyers. The Cooperative, the food offered and the help provided by the Athens Bar, acted as salvation for the weakest members of the Bar who suffered during the period of hunger.
The years of development
From 1945 until 1967 the elected administrations of the Bar have been activated in order to solve the syndicalistical problems of a developing body. A body, with the participation of women from the 50s’, who claimed the removal of all inequalities in exercising their duties. In 1955 Agni Roussopoulou was the first woman counsel in the Bar Council of the Athens Bar.
The increasing number of lawyers, the admission of pensioners from other professions, has also pointed the matter of control and clearance of the Register of the Athens Bar Association, as well as the possibility of introduction of numerous clauses in the legal profession. At the same time, the increase of lawyers together with the widening of their professional horizons, has increased the problems of the profession and created new ones: the revisions of the Code of Lawyers, the problems of the Pension Fund and the amelioration of the pensioning terms with the introduction of an aiding retirement pension, the reinforcement of the Social Care Fund with the creation of various polyclinics, the fairest taxation have been some of the most important fights of the lawyers of Athens during that period. There was also a constant concern to improve the conditions of justice. Requests such as filling the vacancies of judges and court staff, the creation of administrative courts, the faster administration of justice and the construction of a Court House in Athens are always issues to be discussed in the agenda of the Bar Council. Claiming these requests has been even more dynamic, with the strike of lawyers in 1957 for the first time. This strike has been a result of a stronger cooperation between the Greek Bar Associations, as declared in 4 joint conferences two of them took place in Athens (in 1951 and 1952). At that period the Athens Bar Association cooperated with the rest Greek Bars taking some initiatives for the solution of serious problems of the lawyers. It is a stable and fertile relationship, where the Athens Bar Association has the first position among equal bars due to its antiquity and status.
During the ‘50s and ‘60s the Athens Bar has expressed its opinion in serious political and social issues opposing to the executive power. Indicatively, we note the matter of political persecution and the trials on espionage, the rights of political hostages. At the same time, the Athens Bar has intervened in a series of trials, like the trial of Aviators in 1953, asking for the protection of the rights of defendants and their lawyers.
The minutes of the Athens Bar reflect also the active presence of the Bar in serious national issues, such as the Cyprian issue. The Bar led to the internationalization of the subject through discussion in international legal conferences, but also through the energetic participation of the its members in manifestations that shook Athens in the 50s.
Besides its public profile, the Athens Bar Association participated actively in the promotion of the legal civilization of our country and the scientific training of its members. In 1953, the publication of two scientific magazines has been decided, “Nomiko Vima” and “Code of Nomiko Vima”, which steadily inform the members of the Athens Bar Association ever since. Moreover, in that period, the Library of the Athens Bar Association has been enriched and furtherly organized.
In 1967 the dictatorship ceased the Bar Council and appointed a new one, which during the seven years of the dictatorship, has served the military government, while many members of the Bar have been prosecuted or condemned for their resisting activity or for defending other partisans. In 1974, the Restoration of Democracy has brought back all the democratic principles in the Athens Bar Association commencing a new period continuing until nowadays.
The action of the Athens Bar Association has been strongly connected with the persons that represented the Bar by participating in the Bar Council. Most of them have been active members of the political and social life of the country, participating in many cultural, social and scientific associations. Among them we can find distinguished legal professionals, which have connected their life with the protection of individual and social rights.