Procedural principles of good administration in Community law

Abstract

In current debates turning on the fundamental values which the legal order of the European Community should be committed to respect and protect legal issues relating to administrative process and, in particular, the adequate degree of procedural protection to be accorded to individuals have increasingly come to the forefront. This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion by trying to demonstrate that and why the significance ascribed to the law governing Community administrative procedures has indeed gone through a deep metamorphosis during the last decade which arguably has not yet come to an end. In fact, in the face of the recent case-law of the Community courts, which will be analyzed, it seems not too daring to speak of an ongoing process of 'constitutionalization' with respect to procedural requirements. In the context of this broader development, an attempt will be made to reveal some of its exemplary features, namely, the dynamic expansion of a specified set of procedural standards of good administration. It will be argued that process standards, such as the right to access to information or the right to be heard, tend to be extensively interpreted in particular instances as well as to gradually gain universal applicability in the vast field of what has come to be named 'Community' or 'European administrative law'. However, the marked trend towards constitutionalizing process principles, which is primarily being supported by judicial intervention, is understandable only with a view to the extraordinarily heterogeneous nature of the Community administrative 'system' referred to; its 'structure' therefore calls for some further elucidation.