ADR in Administrative Law

Effectiveness of ADR tools in administrative matters – a comparative project within the Panel X of EGPA

EGPA (European Group of Public Administration) organizes one of the most important annual conferences in the field of public administration. Since 2006, one or more of the members of the research group had participated with papers at Group X, Law and Public Administration. Starting with 2010, Dacian C. Dragos is co-chair of the permanent study group X.

In 2009, the Romanian group proposed as a research project for the entire group Effective adjudication in administrative proceedings – this is to be accomplished from a comparative perspective, with a focus on the empirical dimension. The initial results had been presented by the national researchers at the 2010 and 2011 EGPA annual conferences. Following the conference in 2012, the studies will be published in a book, edited by SPRINGER, Heidelberg.

In 2009, Dacian C. Dragos and Bogdana Neamtu edited, together with another member of Study Group X Law and Public Administration, prof. Brian Thompson (University of Liverpool) a special issue of the Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences. The issue comprises selected studies that had been presented at the annual EGPA conference at Rotterdam in 2009.

The Center for Good Governance Studies organized an International Workshop on ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION IN ADMINISTRATIVE LAW 11-12 October, in Cluj Napoca, Romania

The workshop aimed at examining the role, the general framework and the empirical effectiveness of the main alternative dispute resolution tools (administrative appeals, mediation, and ombudsman) in administrative matters, within the broader context of the administrative justice system. The meeting combined approaches from law, public administration, public policy and political science, in order to assess the importance of different instruments for alternative dispute resolution, with an accent on administrative appeals.

As a result, the edited book Alternative Dispute Resolution in European Administrative Law examined the role, the general framework and the empirical effectiveness of the main alternative dispute resolution tools (administrative appeals, mediation, and ombudsman) in administrative matters, within the broader context of the administrative justice system. The book uses approaches from the fields of law, public administration, public policy and political science to assess the importance of different instruments for alternative dispute resolution, with an emphasis on administrative appeals.

Ombudsman studies

The research ‘Transparency, accountability and civic involvement: the role of the Ombudsman institution in the development of good administration principles’ was designed as to represent the national dimension of a broader research, conducted under the coordination of Robert Schuman Centre, European University Institute, Florence and of European Group of Public Administration, with the goal of studying the Ombudsman institution at the EU and the member states level. The network is actively supported by the European Ombudsman as well as by national Ombudsmen from the Netherlands, Greece, Denmark, and Great Britain. The following members of the research group are involved in this research: Dacian C. Dragos, Bogdana Neamtu and Dan Balica, who have worked together with faculty members from the University of Bucharest, Law Faculty (professor PhD Dana Tofan) and Political Sciences Faculty (professor, PhD Radu Carp, PhD Candidate Laura Hossu)

Useful links: