Full text of the paper:
Proceedings of the Faculty of Law, Novi Sad
2024, vol. LVIII, no. 3, p. 679-694
working language: Serbian
Review paper
udk:3.077.3
doi:10.5937/zrpfns58-54127
Author:
Marko Romić
University of Banja Luka
Faculty of Law in Banja Luka
marko.romic@pf.unibl.org
ORCID ID: 0009-0005-8181-4333
Summary:
The principle of legitimate expectations is one of the basic procedural principles in the codifications of general administrative procedure in many European countries. Having its foundation in Kantian philosophy, it has been incorporated into European Union law through the principle of legal certainty and the dominant influence of German legal theory. It is the Court of Justice of the European Union that is responsible for the development of this principle in practice and the postulates on which its application in the member states is based. The new Law on General Administrative Procedure in Serbia introduced the principle of predictability in 2016, which stipulates that administrative authorities are obliged to take into account their previous decisions made in the same or similar cases when resolving a specific administrative matter. The question that arose was whether this meant that the principle of legitimate expectations had been introduced into the Serbian legal order, but under a different name? In the article, we will try to analyze the aforementioned issue, citing examples from comparative European practice, as well as positions from the case law of the European Court of Justice. Special attention will be paid to the breadth of the principle of legitimate expectations, which in its essence should protect the subjective public rights of legal entities, and not only in administrative proceedings. Theoretical elaboration of the concept of legitimate expectations is important to reveal the essence of this concept, which does not only imply specific conduct in (in)legal proceedings, but also in (sub)legal regulation and the creation of public policies in certain social areas.
Keywords:
principles of general administrative procedure, principle of legitimate expectations, principle of predictability, subjective public rights, legal certainty.