All administrative law dialogues will take place online.

Next discussion in 2024

• 30 May 2024, 14.00 - 15.30 CET 
  Administrative Remedies: Lessons from European and Comparative Administrative Law 
  Invited: Prof. Rob Widdershoven (Utrecht University), Prof. Jacopo Alberti (Università degli Studi di Ferrara), Prof. Andrea Biondi (King’s College London) and Prof. Robert Thomas (University of Manchester).

  
  
  Join us for the 4th. REALaw European Administrative Law Dialogue on May 30 at 14:00 to delve into the topic of administrative remedies with insights from experts and practitioners. For this edition of our Dialogues, we are joined by Prof. Jacopo Alberti (Universita degli Studi di Ferrara) and Prof. Rob Widdershoven (Utrecht University) along with Prof. Andrea Biondi (King’s College London) and Prof. Robert Thomas (University of Manchester).
  
  As overshadowed as administrative remedies may be by the spotlight on courts, national legal orders provide for systems of pretrial administrative remedies that come in various shapes and forms, whereby individuals complain about unlawful administrative action before administrative or quasi-judicial  authorities. These remedies may be used before the authorities which issued the contested decision, before hierarchically higher authorities or before a quasi-judicial entity; they may concern only the legality or also the merits of the administrative action; they may be obligatory or compulsory before complainants gain access to court; they may sometimes lead to a reformatio in peius for the applicant. The composition of the bodies carrying out this form of pretrial administrative review is also varied and may often comprise non-legal expertise. All in all, the landscape of administrative remedies in Europe is varied and under researched. 
  
  In parallel, a system of administrative remedies at the EU level has emerged through the mushrooming of Boards of Appeals of EU agencies. Progressively, these bodies have become fully part of the EU judiciary machinery since their decisions can now also escape the scrutiny of the Court of Justice. However, their powers, composition, internal and external guarantees have not been amended accordingly. Several questions emerge in this context: to what extent Boards of Appeal can participate in a system devoted to the principle of effective judicial protection, without being themselves bound by the latter? Could they better enhance the protection of individual rights by remaining administrative, quasi-judicial, bodies or should they better evolve into fully fledged judicial entities?
  
  This new European Administrative Law Dialogue is devoted to examining the systems of administrative remedies from a European and comparative administrative law perspective. Should this system be enhanced and be made obligatory where it is not, so as to lighten the workload of the courts? Should it conversely be made optional, because it is not able to sufficiently respect guarantees of independence and impartiality? How effective is it in protecting individuals’ legal sphere? Can the EU system of administrative remedies learn from the practice at national level or vice versa?

Previous discussion in 2024 

• 23 January 2024, 15.00-16.30 CET
  Procedural Principles in Contemporary Administrative Law: Between Growing Uncertainties and Practical Challenges
  Invited: Professor Takis Tridimas (King’s College London), Professor Giacinto della Cananea (Bocconi University), Brendan van Alsenoy (EDPS),  Yves Van Gerven (Belgian Competition Authority).
  
  The third European Administrative Law Dialogue will explore the role and function of procedural principles in contemporary administrative law. The increasing complexity of decision-making procedures, the role of artificial intelligence, the growing uncertainty and polycentrism of administrative law are all factors which arguably reshape and challenge the role of procedural principles, such as the right to be heard, or the duty of care or to give reasons. We will explore the evolving role of principles of administrative decision-making with two academics and two practitioners. Prof. Takis Tridimas and Prof. Giacinto della Cananea will set the scene respectively from a European and a comparative perspective for mapping the conceptual stakes of these procedural principles for the protection of individuals in their relation to the administration. Brendan Van Alsenoy and Yves Van Gerven will discuss the practical challenges for implementing European procedural principles in day-to-day administrative decision-making.

Discussions in 2023

• 3 March 2023, 14.00-15.45h (CET)
  The role of comparative administrative law in shaping European administrative law
  Invited: Professor Joana Mendes (University of Luxembourg), Dr. Filipe Brito Bastos (NOVA University of Lisbon), Tanja Enhert (European Ombudsman, Inquiries Coordinator) and Sacha Prechal (European Court of Justice). 
  
  It has been noted that comparative administrative law was experiencing a recent renaissance. There is a practical or intellectual curiosity for other administrative systems and solutions, for understanding them, learning from them, coordinating them and/or transcending their differences, subsuming them into a new entity – sometimes European, sometimes global, sometimes transnational. So what do comparative and European administrative lawyers expect? What are their objectives and how do they think that they might be able to achieve them? 
  Click here to watch the recording
   

• 27 November 2023, 15.00-16.30h (CET)
  Our Parochial Administrative Law: the value of comparative law for the development of U.S. administrative law. 
  I​​​​nvited: Professor Dr. Oren Tamir. 

  Join us for a discussion with Oren Tamir on his upcoming publication “Our Parochial Administrative Law”. This online event will zoom in on U.S. administrative law and the value of meaningful and productive comparative research.  
  Professor Liz Fisher, University of Oxford, and Professor Mariolina Eliantonio, Maastricht University, will accompany Dr Oren Tamir in a dialogue on the value of comparative legal research, the development of U.S. administrative law, and on the exchange of lessons between European and U.S. administrative law. 
  
  Going back to the birth of modern administrative law in America reveals something striking. The “pioneers” of the field and many who followed in their footsteps weren’t trying to fashion a body of law for a rapidly expanding administrative state by being exclusively self-referential—that is, focusing only on our own idiosyncratic experiences and needs. Rather, they were consistently looking at what the U.S. might learn from other jurisdictions as well. In short, modern administrative law began in our system very much as an exercise in comparative law. Fast forward to today, and this intense comparative engagement has almost vanished from the administrative law scene. It lives only on the margins of the scholarly debate without any real purchase or impact. But even when administrative comparison does rarely appear in prominent places, its employment seems highly problematic, giving the entire enterprise a bad rap. For instance, in his dissent from a denial of cert in Buffington v. McDonough from this past term Justice Gorsuch chastised his colleagues for refusing to reevaluate Chevron deference among other things by noting that other countries “declined to adopt” something similar. To be sure, Justice Gorsuch’s statement is superficially true. But it suffers from many of the familiar failures of irresponsible comparison—including by being shallow, acontextual, and selective. In fact, Justice Gorsuch’s comparativism in Buffington may not only be flawed but also what comparativists might call “abusive”—i.e., done in the service of undermining what our constitutionally legitimate administrative state presently seems to require. 
  Click here for more information.