Judicial control of one-sided sub-constitutional acts

• Main Author: Jean Michel Lemoyne de Forges
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Splitu 2017-01-01
• Series: Zbornik Radova Pravnog Fakulteta u Splitu
• Subjects: France; judicial control; Constitutional Council
• Online Access: http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/259362

The Kelsenov model of rule or state of law implies that all one-sided legal acts brought in by a public law body, apart from that of the very constitutional creators themselves, must compulsorily be able to be the subject of administrative judicial control. It is on this very principle that the combination of appropriate court practice of the State and Constitutional Councils should be evaluated in this sense. Relying on the provisions of the great fundamental Act of 24 May 1872, the State Council very early on enabled that the organic criterion of administrative court supervision has preference. Therefore, the principle demands that every one-sided decision, general or not, which brings the administrative body power, can be the subject of a lawsuit for excessive use of powers, regardless of what it is about and on which thing the decision is reached. The concept of administrative bodies is particularly broad because it not only includes powers of local bodies, but of ministries, the government and the president of the Republic too. Apart from that, the concept of excessive use of powers is also a broad concept and in this way enables the administrative judge to censor supervision, mistakes in procedure and form, the abuse of power, errors of fact and mistakes in the aim and purpose committed by administrative bodies. This is even in the case where such a body has „discretionary power or the power of free evaluation“and the administrative judge nullifies, due to the illegality of the decision which contains an „obvious error “in evaluation, which that body has given, on the appropriateness of the decision with the facts on which that body wanted to give the decision. The only limitation of this control is that the judge cannot substitute with his/her evaluation the evaluation of the legislator or administration on the „opportunism “of the provision or individual decision. Where the excessive use of powers is concerned, in principle, the judge can only declare nul and void the illegal administrative act, that is retract it retroactively from the legal system. However, various instruments, sometimes prescribed by law, sometimes from court practice bring even closer the dispute judge in nullifying even closer to the judge in an „objective full jurisdiction dispute“ which more or less contributes to resolving the merit of the issue aimed at it. As far as the Constitutional Council is concerned, if it cannot have at its disposal the same fundamental powers of legal control which are assigned to it directly, it is considered responsible for the control of a certain number of acts the texts of which are not expressly made known to it.. Furthermore, even if it does not replace the legislator, the Constitutional Council accepts and considers that the „obvious error in evaluation“, which the legislator could have made, represents a violation of the Constitution. In the French legal system a one-sided public act which reaches the decision and which could avoid judge control is almost non-existent. The scope of this control only depends on the scope of the power under evaluation which the constitution, law or rulebooks give to public bodies.