LAW : EUROPEAN SECTION

Administrative law consists of the set of rules defining the rights and obligations of the administration. It is the most important part of public law.

It is the law of imbalance because it essentially governs the relations between public persons and the administered. This discrepancy between the general interest and particular interests explains the existence of a particular law, exorbitant from the common law.

This law was constructed to regulate relations. Historically, several responses have been made, and even today we can distinguish several models that combine these responses in varying proportions.

Administrative law covers, moreover, the set of rules governing the organization and operation of public bodies that do not come under the legislative or judicial authority, as well as those governing relations between citizens and public bodies.

The expression arbitrary state (or police state) without a pejorative connotation qualifies states acting according to their free will, not subject to positive law but only to moral or religious limits. This is justified by the fact that the Head of State (the King in the Ancien Régime in France, for example) has a monopoly of constraint: he alone can enact binding rules, which he does not have to follow. Moreover, since the King is the head of justice, he can in no case be subject to judges who are subordinate to him.

Finally, when an independent judicial authority is recognized, the state refuses to allow judges to interfere in administrative activity. Control can nevertheless be exercised, but within the administration itself, by means of gracious and hierarchical appeals.

Rule of administrative law

This answer corresponds essentially to contemporary France. The state of arbitrariness was only tolerable with the existence of a strong power (during the Ancien Régime) or a crisis (during the French Revolution). From now on, it was desired to subject the administration to the law, but without subordinating it to the judiciary. Thus institutions resembling judicial jurisdiction will develop within the administration itself. In France, for example, we are witnessing the appearance of the councils of prefectures (created by the law of 28 Pluviose, An VIII, and whose powers of attribution were very precise) and then the administrative courts, leading to a true administrative jurisdiction under the authority of the Conseil d'État (France).

State of common law

This solution has been adopted in countries with a different history and corresponds to the English model. The state deemed dangerous is justiciable as any other person. There is therefore no duality of jurisdiction as in France. However, as there are still fundamental differences with private law, special rules are nevertheless being developed (for requisitioning, collecting taxes, etc.) but they seek to remain as close as possible to ordinary law. Finally, free recourse within the administration appears with the existence of "administrative courts" (which do not belong to a court but to the administration).

Thus, in states governed by the rule of law, there is always an administrative law, without there always being a duality of jurisdiction as in France with the administrative judge placed under the control of the

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