Good Administration And The Council Of Europe

This book seeks to find an answer to the question of how to rule a state well by drawing on a range of organizational, procedural, and substantive standards of administrative conduct developed within the framework of the Council of Europe (CoE) as an organization of a broader scope than the European Union.

The public administration is above all for us, the protection of our rights and the pursuit of the public good. This handbook will be of interest to all those concerned with the proper functioning of public administration: individuals who apply for public services and action and the public officials who process their applications; lawyers, judges and ombudspersons involved in the review of the public administration’s activities; and policy makers and legislators concerned with public administration reform. It sets out and explains the substantive and procedural principles of administrative law concerning relations between individuals and public authorities, with commentary backed up by references to the Council of Europe legal instruments (conventions, recommendations and resolutions) from which each principle is drawn and to the relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

Among the rights conferred on the citizens of Europe by the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms is the right to and‘good administration.and’ It is anticipated that the new Reform Constitutional Treaty will operate to make the Charter and its rights legally binding. This is the first time that any legal system has proclaimed such a right and then sought to constitutionalise it. Whether the right to good administration under the Charter represents a new right, and, if such a right exists, whether it varies according to whether the executive is mandated to control or steward, is the subject matter of this thoughtful, unblinkered book. Grounding her exposition in a deeply-informed engagement with relevant primary and secondary sources, the author exposes the serious difficulties and contradictions in the concept of the right to good administration. She demonstrates that the features of good administration cannot be fixed or fully enunciated, but are identified only when the conduct of the administration fails to reach an acceptable standard, a standard that varies over time and context. And in the modes of the concept most often embracedand—such as the notion of citizen as consumer with marketplace choice, and the notion of and‘consultation, and’ a form of participatory democracy which privileges those individuals and communities who have the political sophistication to organise themselves and further marginalise large sectors of unorganised societyand—she finds a virtual denial of the democratic concept of citizen as sovereign, the and‘creatorand’ of state power who can dictate the exact limits to be placed on personal autonomy. The extraordinary clarity and conviction of the authorand’s approach is apparent in the details of her presentation, which include analysis of the following factors among others: and• the enforceable content of the right, including the role of the European Ombudsman; and• the relationship between good governance and good administration; and• the duties of the Commission as administrator; and• the uncertain reach of the concept of maladministration; and• damages in compensation actions as remedy for breach of good administration; and• pre-Charter principles of good administration as agreed in the Council of Europe and developed by the Courts; and and• the right of access to documentation, especially as it relates to the policy of language diversity. The final chapters examine the role of the right to good administration in the fraught contexts of competition law, Community finances, and the European environmental framework. This far-seeing study breaks new ground in the ever more politicized debate over the future of the European Union. As good administration is the mechanism by which the principles of good governance are to be delivered, the detailed attention given to this subject here is more than warranted. It is sure to be of exceptional value to all concerned with the development of an administrative institution of integrity and accountability in EU governance.

Good Administration and the Council of Europe: Law, Principles, and Effectiveness examines the existence and effectiveness of written and unwritten standards of good administration developed within the framework of the Council of Europe (CoE) and in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. These standards - called 'pan- European general principles of good administration' - cover the entire range of general organizational, procedural, and substantive legal institutions meant to ensure a democratically legitimized, open, and transparent administration respecting the rule of law. They are about the 'limiting function' of administrative law: its function to protect individuals from arbitrary power, to legitimize administrative action, and to combat corruption. This book analyses the sources and functions of the pan-European general principles of good administration and seeks to uncover how deeply they are rooted in the domestic legal systems of the CoE Member States. It comprises 28 country reports dedicated to an in-depth exploration of the impact of these standards on the national legal systems of the Member States written by respective experts on these systems. It argues that the pan-European general principles of good administration lead to a certain harmonization of the legal orders of the Member States with regard to the limiting function of administrative law despite the many fundamental differences between their administrative and legal systems. It comes to the further conclusion that the pan-European general principles of good administration can be considered as a concretization of the founding values of the CoE and describes the 'administrative law obligations' a Member State entered into when joining the CoE.

The Council of Europe, of which all European States are members, plays a pivotal role in the promotion and protection of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Europe. Bringing together specialist scholars and practitioners, The Council of Europe: Its Laws and Policies offers profound insights into the functioning of the organization. The organization's primary and secondary law, its institutional structure, and its far-reaching fields of activities are comprehensively and systematically analysed. This volume investigates the impact of the Council's activities within the national legal systems of the Member States and the dense web of relationships between the Council of Europe and other international organisations. An important reference work on one of the most influential organizations in Europe, the book concludes that the Council of Europe has played a considerable role in the constitutionalization process of regional public international law.

The book analyses the administrative system in the European Union with a focus on the efficiency and legitimacy of the administrative practices. In the analysis three distinct theoretical perspectives are used (a structural, a procedural and a cultural), thus ensuring that a broad variety of factors are included.

The third edition of EU Administrative Law provides comprehensive coverage of the administrative system in the EU and the principles of judicial review that apply in this area. This revised edition provides important updates on each area covered, including new case law; institutional developments; and EU legislation. These changes are located within the framework of broader developments in the EU. The chapters in the first half of the book deal with all the principal variants of the EU administrative regime. Thus there are chapters dealing with the history and taxonomy of the EU administrative regime; direct administration; shared administration; comitology; agencies; social partners; and the open method of coordination. The coverage throughout focuses on the legal regime that governs the particular form of administration and broader issues of accountability, drawing on literature from political science as well as law. The focus in the second part of the book shifts to judicial review. There are detailed chapters covering all principles of judicial review and the discussion of the law throughout is analytical and contextual. It begins with the principles that have informed the development of EU judicial review. This is followed by a chapter dealing with the judicial system and the way in which reform could impact on the subject matter of the book. There are then chapters dealing with competence; access; transparency; process; law, fact and discretion; rights; equality; legitimate expectations; two chapters on proportionality; the precautionary principle; two chapters on remedies; and the Ombudsman.