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The Development of the Administrative Courts' System in Transitional Countries and their Role in Democratic, Economic and Social Transition

Public administration in general, as well as organization of administrative courts have underwent certain tremendous changes in the last decade of the 20th century as a response to the transition process in post-communist European countries. The development of the administrative courts’ system was not identical in all the transitional countries due to different historical circumstances. Regarding former Yugoslav countries, legal basis for the control of administration was established in 1952 with the Administrative Disputes Act, which was the first codified set of rules regarding administrative control in socialist countries generally. A new Administrative Disputes Act was enacted in 1977, when administrative court was established also in Zagreb, being the capital of a federal unit of the former Yugoslavia. Regarding Croatia, after gaining its independence in 1991, the Yugoslavian Administrative Disputes Act from 1977 was taken over into Croatian legislature and Administrative Court in Zagreb was renamed into Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia. In its competence encompassed the control of administration without the right to the appeal to the court of the second instance. Further changes in national legislations of transitional countries were affected by standards of international organizations, such as Council of Europe, SIGMA, OECD, etc., as well as by the process of the accession into the EU and harmonization of national legislature with acquis communautaire. Process of the accession into the EU was characterized with series of documents and strategies resulting in serious reforms in administration, which is generally known as europeanisation and modernisation of public administration. They all had the same goal – protecting rights of the citizens from unlawful decisions issued by the administrative bodies and protection from unlawful procedures conducted before administrative bodies. The main goals were increasing efficiency in court proceedings, enabling an appeal to higher instance court and lessening duration of the proceedings in whole. Once again taking into account development in Croatia, a major administrative reform during its accession into the EU resulted in the adoption of the new Administrative Disputes Act which was accepted in the parliament in 2010 and is in force since 2012. New Administrative Courts’ system with four first instance courts and one High Administrative Court is in conformity with the mentioned European standards. It is likely that former Yugoslav countries had similar development as Croatia. Nowadays, administrative courts’ procedures in European countries are all based on the same principles of administrative law and on the similar rules in conducting procedures before administrative courts. Generally speaking, they are all characterised by similarities in organisation of the judicial control of administration, all known in theory as the convergence towards common European model of administrative courts’ control. The aim of the paper is to research and analyse in what extent mentioned reforms and development of the new administrative courts’ systems in transitional countries affected the rights of the citizens. Since administrative courts are entitled to perform control of the legality of acts of regulatory bodies, for example in the field of energetics, development of the administrative courts’ system affects economy as well. The paper will analyse the role of administrative courts in democratic, economic and social transition in former Yugoslav and other transitional countries, which had different background and starting positions from those that were present in Croatia.

judicial review, administrative courts, transition

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