This master’s thesis examines, through the lens of legislation and judicial practice, the legal concept of the method of enforcing decisions in administrative courts, which—following the case law of the Supreme Administrative Court and modeled on this concept in the decisions of the Constitutional Court—was incorporated into the Administrative Procedure Act (ZUS-1) via the ZUS-1C amendment.
The first part examines administrative litigation as a mechanism of judicial oversight over the administration; the subsequent section presents the enforcement of court decisions in administrative litigation; the thesis then focuses on the institution of the method of enforcing a decision under Article 64 of ZUS-1; and finally, the judicial determination of the method of enforcing a decision is presented through an analysis of case law.
The determination of the method of enforcing a decision serves as a bridge between the annulment of the contested act and the return to a new proceeding, as well as between adjudication in a dispute of full jurisdiction, as this returns the decision-making to the administrative authority, while more precise substantive guidelines prevent unduly prolonged decision-making in cases and the repeated referral of the case back and forth between the administrative authority and the administrative courts.
An analysis of the administrative courts’ case law following the introduction of this institution has shown that, even prior to the amendment of ZUS-1C, the Supreme Administrative Court had taken the position that it is possible to specify the method of enforcement of a decision; however, the administrative court did not make use of this option. The administrative court generally decides by annulling the contested administrative act and returning it to the administrative authority for a new proceeding; in doing so, it usually does not specify the method of enforcement of the decision in the operative part, but rather frequently provides guidance and substantive directions to the administrative authority in the reasoning.
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