Procedural Principles for Effective Legal Protection in Administrative Proceedings

Abstract

In addition to certain detailed rules of procedures, court proceedings are permeated by principles. They can be clustered into diverse groups, as the legislators of each procedural code attribute different roles to the respective principles. Effective redress, due process and other principles compete with each other, and the legislators must choose which principles should be prioritized in the specific time in order to meet the social, political, and economic set-up of the era. This is true in general for all court procedures, especially for codes of administrative procedure, since these provide control over the executive branch. Thus, the goal of all codes of administrative procedure should be to provide an “unbroken” system of judicial protection. Nevertheless, ways and means have been different in each state when inventing how this is to be achieved. The present study aims to examine principles guiding procedures prevailing in the administrative proceedings in Hungary and Poland. The analysis of the procedural principles will certainly show what principles are currently pursued in Europe to ensure effective legal protection.