Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31141/zrpfs.2019.56.131.47
Publication of and Access to Administrative Court Decisions
Martine de Boisdeffre
Abstract
Jeremy Bentham once said: « Publication is the soul of law ». Court decisions cannot and must not only be public, they must be transparent. This demand can be completely fulfilled only when every citizen is able to know about the content of court decisions in such a way that citizens have access to them. Therefore, the citizen must be given intellectual understanding of their meaning and scope. The first dimension is related to access in a narrow or strict sense. The second dimension is related to the understandability of court decisions which implies that when writing court decisions terminology of the Constitutional Council of the Republic of France should be used. This terminology has been used for over twenty odd years and was adopted when the Constitutional Council dedicated itself to the constitutional aim of accessibility and understandability of the law. Even though these two mentioned dimensions, material and intellectual, in approaching administrative court decisions in interaction are, they must be differentiated in a way that enables accessibility and understandability. Improving accessibility and understandability of decisions is one of the main elements towards which French administrative jurisdiction leans. An all-inclusive approach to court decisions also implies bringing in more quality and simpler legal regulations applicable when reaching court decisions. Following all this, analyzed are: accessibility of administrative court decisions, the influence of French administrative law on certain national legislations, the perspective of accessibility taking into account the digital revolution, risk management of accessibility of certain data emerging from court decisions, understandability of administrative court decisions and the formulation thereof. Finally, the need for measures with the aim of developing reaching administrative court decisions is stressed. This includes understanding all citizens, achieving a balance between internal quality and understandability of decisions, all-inclusivity of explaining administrative court decisions and the need to cite European court and Constitutional Council decisions.
Keywords
decisions of administrative courts; publications; availability
Hrčak ID:
217646
URI
Publication date:
26.2.2019.
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