Akkreditierungsverfahren und -modelle nach Maßgabe des Hochschulrechts der Länder

Since the beginning of the so-called Bologna-process, accreditations are considered to be one of the key factors to ensure a higher quality in university education all over Europe. Accordingly, an accreditation system was established in Germany at the end of the 1990s. In the past, one of the characteristics of this system was the fact that it was mainly based on administrative rules and non binding resolutions. This lack of a formal legal basis of the German accreditation system has been heavily criticised by legal scholars and university personnel. In the last three years, the legislators of the Länder have taken account of this criticism by making changes of and adjustments to their university acts. Principally, these changes are to be welcomed. For the first time ever, accreditations and the procedure leading towards accreditations have been put on a formal legal basis. Also, it is a step forward that different models of accreditation procedures have been formally regulated. However, a closer look at these statutes reveals that the new regulations are in many ways disappointing. Firstly, from a legal point of view they are often poorly crafted and give rise to several misunderstandings and legal questions. Secondly, the new regulations do not cover all relevant aspects of the accreditation procedure. Therefore, they have to be regarded as incomplete regulations. Thirdly, even though some aspects are regulated the enacted provisions are often insufficient because several important questions concerning the accreditation process remain unanswered, for example the precise legal nature of accreditations. Fourthly, since no uniform legal approach to the problem of accreditations has been applied all over Germany the different university acts of the Länder are very heterogenic. Therefore, it is hardly possible to draw general conclusions of the German accreditation system applying to all the Länder. For these reasons, the process of reforming and improving the accreditation system has not come to a satisfying end. Rather, the Länder parliaments are asked to review the statutes once again and to make further changes.