As overshadowed as administrative remedies may be by the spotlight on courts, national legal orders provide for systems of pretrial administrative remedies that come in various shapes and forms, whereby individuals complain about unlawful administrative action before administrative or quasi-judicial authorities. These remedies may be used before the authorities which issued the contested decision, before hierarchically higher authorities or before a quasi-judicial entity; they may concern only the legality or also the merits of the administrative action; they may be obligatory or compulsory before complainants gain access to court; they may sometimes lead to a reformatio in peius for the applicant. The composition of the bodies carrying out this form of pretrial administrative review is also varied and may often comprise non-legal expertise. All in all, the landscape of administrative remedies in Europe is varied and under researched.
In parallel, a system of administrative remedies at the EU level has emerged through the mushrooming of Boards of Appeals of EU agencies. Progressively, these bodies have become fully part of the EU judiciary machinery since their decisions can now also escape the scrutiny of the Court of Justice. However, their powers, composition, internal and external guarantees have not been amended accordingly. Several questions emerge in this context: to what extent Boards of Appeal can participate in a system devoted to the principle of effective judicial protection, without being themselves bound by the latter? Could they better enhance the protection of individual rights by remaining administrative, quasi-judicial, bodies or should they better evolve into fully fledged judicial entities?
This new European Administrative Law Dialogue is devoted to examining the systems of administrative remedies from a European and comparative administrative law perspective. Should this system be enhanced and be made obligatory where it is not, so as to lighten the workload of the courts? Should it conversely be made optional, because it is not able to sufficiently respect guarantees of independence and impartiality? How effective is it in protecting individuals’ legal sphere? Can the EU system of administrative remedies learn from the practice at national level or vice versa?
Programme
| Opening by Professor Mariolina Eliantonio (University of Maastricht) |
| Prof. Rob Widdershoven (Utrecht University) Prof. Jacopo Alberti (Università degli Studi di Ferrara) |
| Q&A – Discussions |
| Prof. Andrea Biondi (King’s College London) Prof. Robert Thomas (University of Manchester) |
| Q&A – Discussions |
| Conclusions by Professor Yseult Marique (University of Essex) |
Please watch the recording of the discussions here
