Functioning of administrative justice

The court has the legal powers necessary to redress an unlawful act or action of the administration

Legal powers necessary to redress an unlawful act or action of the administration is considered to include, as a minimum, the ability to quash the administrative act in part or in full, and order that an administrative act be adopted, or an administrative action be taken within the deadline specified by the court.

Judgements of the first-instance administrative court can be challenged in higher court

It is important to verify that both the complainant as well as the defendant (public authority) have the right to challenge the decision of the first instance court. There can be filtering mechanisms in place that the higher court can apply, when deciding the admissibility of appeal, e.g., to identify cases that have fundamental significance, where the decision derogates from the prior ruling of the higher court, where there are serious doubts about the correctness of the judgment or there are serious procedural shortcomings. Points are not awarded, if (for example): - The admissibility of the appeal (due to other than formal reasons, e.g., timeliness, lack of authority) is decided by the same court that made the first instance decision without any right to appeal against this decision. - Appeal is allowed only in cases, where the first instance court decided in full jurisdiction/in meritum; - Appeal is allowed only in cases, where administrative appeal was excluded. - Appeal right depends solely on a monetary threshold.

Judgements of the first-instance administrative court can be challenged in higher court by public authorities

It is important to verify that both the complainant as well as the defendant (public authority) have the right to challenge the decision of the first instance court. There can be filtering mechanisms in place that the higher court can apply, when deciding the admissibility of appeal, e.g., to identify cases that have fundamental significance, where the decision derogates from the prior ruling of the higher court, where there are serious doubts about the correctness of the judgment or there are serious procedural shortcomings. Points are not awarded, if (for example): - The admissibility of the appeal (due to other than formal reasons, e.g., timeliness, lack of authority) is decided by the same court that made the first instance decision without any right to appeal against this decision. - Appeal is allowed only in cases, where the first instance court decided in full jurisdiction/in meritum; - Appeal is allowed only in cases, where administrative appeal was excluded. - Appeal right depends solely on a monetary threshold. it is important to verify that the public authority (defendant in the first instance procedure) has the same rights for challenging the decisions of the first instance courts in the higher courts as the plaintiff.

Safeguards are established in the legislation to ensure that court rulings are executed effectively and without delays

The safeguards for ensuring effective enforcement can include sanctions for failure to comply or other effective measures to bypass inactive administration (e.g., appointment of an executor by the court).

There is a procedure for ensuring effective remedies for excessive length of judicial proceedings in administrative cases

To determine whether a procedure for ensuring effective remedies for excessive length of judicial proceedings in administrative cases is in place, the assessor needs to verify if there is a possibility to submit a complaint for inactivity of the judge to the court president and/or to a higher court as well as the possibility to be awarded compensation for the violation of the right.

Procedure for ensuring effective remedies for excessive length of judicial proceedings in administrative cases is functional in practice

To determine whether a procedure for ensuring effective remedies for excessive length of judicial proceedings in administrative cases is applied in practice, court decisions on complaints against excessively lengthy proceedings would be considered as evidence of effective implementation of procedures. If complaints are filed but there are no related court decisions, it is evidence that a procedure exists but is not effectively implemented.

Administrative cases are handled by administrative courts or judges specialised in administrative cases in all court instances

Review of regulations (regulating organisation of courts or, in cases where no specialised administrative courts exist, the internal division of work of judges and the establishment of specialised chambers in courts of general jurisdiction) to identify the existence and the number of judges who deal exclusively with administrative cases in all court instances. Points are not awarded, if the judges handling administrative cases are also handling other types of cases (e.g. civil, criminal, misdemeanour) AND if the judges have to apply a different procedural code for these cases (than the code applied for handling administrative cases).

Judges dealing with administrative cases have an adequate number of legal assistants supporting them in their work

Review of regulations prescribing the number of positions for legal assistants in all courts, and all court instances dealing with administrative cases, supplemented with statistical data on the number of assistants employed. An adequate number of legal assistants is considered, at a minimum, a ratio of one legal assistant for every two judges in the country.

Specialised training programme(s) for judges dealing with administrative cases are conducted and attended by administrative judges

Review of the training programme(s) to identify special training for administrative judges, supplemented with statistics on the number of administrative judges who have participated in the special training. Training programmes must be run in the current or latest full calendar year and attended by judges dealing with administrative court cases.

The workload of judges is systematically analysed

Review of reports on the performance of administrative courts. To meet the criteria for systematic analysis of judges’ workload, the reports must include the following data: • the number of judges per court; • the number of cases annually received/resolved per court and per judge in each court; • the number of unresolved cases at the end of a period per court.

A functional and comprehensive case management system is used by the first instance administrative courts

Points can be awarded only if the annual report on the workload of administrative judges is prepared solely based on the data from the case management system (i.e. not based on manually collected data) and if the judges are able to use the system for identifying other relevant cases (for ensuring consistency of case-law) and for identifying the complete list of cases, which they are currently handling.

Final court rulings of all administrative courts are available to the public online

The total number of final rulings published online for a calendar year are identified and compared to the number of cases solved by the same court during the same period. Points are not awarded, if the final rulings are published for less than 80% of solved cases. The same approach has to be applied for all courts handling administrative cases in all court instances.

Cases returned for retrial or judgments amended by a higher court (%)

Only administrative court cases for the last full calendar year are taken into account. It is calculated by dividing the number of cases amended or returned for retrial in the second-instance court by the total number of resolved cases in the second-instance court, expressed as a percentage. No points are awarded for criterion 13 if no points were awarded for criterion 2, due to the non-functional mechanism for challenging first instance court decisions. Points are allocated based on the percentage of cases returned or judgements are amended by a higher court (x): • x > 50% = 0 points • 20% ≤ x ≤ 50% = linear function • x < 20% = 8 points .