Panos Bitsaxis was born in Athens in 1956. He studied law in the Law School of Athens Capodistrian University and political science in Thessaloniki Aristotle University.
He is an attorney and counselor at law, assigned to the Supreme Court (Arios Pagos), member of Athens Bar Association. He practices mainly penal and administrative law though his law firm litigates cases in almost all fields of law, in Greece and abroad.
Panos Bitsaxis is known in Greece and abroad among others from significant cases ruled by the European Court of Human Rights.
His law firm is the first in Greece which undertook the duty to introduce individual applications in Strasbourg and human rights law is one of the main aspects of its practice in Greece and abroad.
In the years 1982-1988 he worked as an expert adviser to the Minister of Justice in the domain of legislative policy. He submitted to the Government many of the important legal reforms of this period.
He represented Greece to the European Union and the Council of Europe and in various international and bilateral negotiations. He has presided in all meetings relevant to justice issues in the European Union, on the technical level, during the Greek presidency (1983).
He has been Secretary Ceneral of the Ministry of Culture (1989) and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, responsible of the General Secretariat of Sports (2009-2012).
He has been à lecturer of Criminal law and Procedure in the Law School of Athens University.
He published articles and studies in scientific magazines in Greece and in various occasions he intervened through the media to defend victims of human rights violations or to confront policies against human rights law. Recent publications: a) Religions freedom and b) Family Life and Free Union under the scope of European Convention of Human rights.
He is married with Marina Bravou an attorney at Law and Lecturer to the University of Athens (family law) and he has two children, Vangelis 39, attorney at Law and Nikos 32, maritime financial analyst.
