Administrative procedural and litigation aspects of the review of governmental actions

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the administrative procedural and litigation aspects of judicial review of governmental actions under the scope of the political question doctrine in Hungary. Governmental actions, due to their political nature, are usually excluded from judicial review, which means that an important safeguard of rule of law does not apply to them. As a result, serious constitutional concerns arise, especially when these decisions, in addition to their political nature, have a legal nature, too, or are administrative adjudicative ones. In these cases, procedural safeguards are even more important. The paper therefore examines such borderline cases in the practice of the Hungarian administrative courts and of the Constitutional Court regarding the existence of judicial review in these cases. The research has not comprehensively covered judicial practice, but focuses only on some characteristic decisions. In addition to examining court cases, the paper covers the statutory background and the theoretical foundations as well.