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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 December 2022
Functional comparison of administrative laws – Development of EU administrative law based on a state-matrix of general principles – Jürgen Schwarze’s approach – Choices of object, objectives, method, assumptions and normative implications – Structural features of the EU administration versus the binary liberty-authority of core principles of national administrative law – Liberal normativist approach – Contemporary critical examination of the legacy of comparative administrative law
An early draft version of this article was presented at the Workshop ‘Beyond Methods: The Politics of Legal Research’, University of Amsterdam, October 2020, and a more elaborate version at the Workshop ‘Studying actors and roles in EU legal research’, University of Leuven, September 2021. I am grateful to the participants of both workshops for the discussions that ensued, in particular to Betül Kaas, to Poul Kjaer, to Cecilia Rizcallah and to Mariolina Eliantonio. Rob van Gestel’s particularly generous and blunt comments contributed significantly to sharpening the argument. Sabino Cassese, Jan Komarék, José Maria Rodriguez Santiago, Michal Krajewski and the editors of this special issue generously read a final draft and further allowed me to clarify important points. Two sections partially build on, complete, and refine the analysis in J. Mendes, ‘The EU Administrative Institutions, Their Law and Legal Scholarship’, in P. Cane et al. (eds.), Oxford Handbook on Comparative Administrative Law (Oxford University Press 2020) Section 3. The integration function of comparison is further developed in J. Mendes, ‘Comparative Administrative Law in the EU: The Integration Function and its Limits’, in M. Bartl and J. Lawrence (eds.), The Politics of European Legal Research. Behind the Method (Edward Elgar, forthcoming), which is based on the research done for this article.
1 On liberal normativism see further M. Loughlin, Public Law and Political Theory (Oxford University Press 1992) ch. 5 (tracing the origins of normativism in the UK legal thought) in particular p. 101-104 and p. 206-210.
2 See N. Walker, ‘Beyond the Holistic Constitution?’, in P. Dobner and M. Loughlin (eds.), The Twilight of Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press 2010) p. 291 at p. 294, arguing (in relation to EU constitutionalism) that ‘how deep the analogy runs and what is lost – or gained – in translation … is rarely the subject of sustained analysis’.
3 I am drawing here on observations made by Loïc Azoulai in the Leuven Workshop of 2021.
4 S. Cassese, The European Administration (International Institute of Administrative Sciences 1987); E. Chiti, ‘La costruzione del sistema amministrativo europeo’, in S. Battini and M.P. Chiti (eds.), Diritto Amministrativo Europeo (Giuffrè 2013) p. 45. Referring to the ‘hidden’ executive, see L Azoulai, ‘Pour un Droit de l’Exécution de l’Union Européenne’, in J. Dutheil de la Rochère (ed.), L’Exécution du Droit de l’Union, entre Mécanismes Communautaires et Droits Nationaux (Bruylant 2009) p. 1.
5 J. Schwarze, European Administrative Law, 2nd edn. (Sweet & Maxwell 1992[2006]) p. 21-24.
6 P. Pescatore, ‘Rôle et chance du droit et des juges dans la construction de l’Europe’, 26(1) Revue Internationale de Droit Comparé (1974) p. 5 at p. 7-8.
7 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 54, 71-75, 1457; J. Rivero, ‘Vers un Droit Commun Européen: Nouvelles Perspectives en Droit Administratif’, in M. Cappelletti (ed.), New Perspectives for a Common Law of Europe (Bruylant 1978) p. 389. See further the sub-section ‘Legal scholarship’, below.
8 The immediate follow up was the treatise by M.P. Chiti and G. Greco, Trattato di Diritto Amministrativo Europeo (Giuffrè 1997).
9 E.g. ECJ 12 July 1957, Joined Cases 7/56 and 3/57 to 7/57, Algera and Others v Common Assembly, ECLI:EU:C:1957:7; ECJ 5 March 1996, Joined Cases C-46/93 and C-48/93, Brasserie du Pêcheur and Factortame and Others, ECLI:EU:C:1996:79, para. 27.
10 Pescatore, supra n. 6, p. 10-11 (all translations are mine).
11 K. Lenaerts and K. Gutman, ‘The Comparative Law Method and the Court of Justice of the European Union Interlocking Legal Orders Revisited’, in M. Andenas and D. Fairgrieve (eds.), Courts and Comparative Law (Oxford University Press 2015) p. 141 at p. 152 and 153. That the Court is bound to the realisation of the objectives of the Treaty is stressed by Pescatore while ensuring respect for the law and of the ‘legalité communautaire’, supra n. 6, p. 10.
12 See, among many, S. Schmidt, The European Court of Justice and the Policy Process (Oxford University Press 2018); also the earlier work of H. Rasmussen, On the Law and Policy of the European Court of Justice (Nijhoff 1986).
13 Pescatore, supra n. 6, p. 14.
14 A similar view can be found in P. Reuter, ‘Le recours de la Cour de Justice des Communautés Européennes à des principes généraux de droit’, in Mélanges Offertes à Henri Rolin. Problèmes de Droit des Gens (Pedone 1964) p. 263-283. On how that view is in line with Pierre Pescatore’s view of the Court, see V. Fritz, ‘Activism On and Off the Bench: Pierre Pescatore and the Law of Integration’, 57(2) Common Market Law Review (2020) p. 475 at p. 486.
15 P. Pescatore, ‘Le recours, dans la jurisprudence de la Cour de justice des Communautés Européennes, à des normes déduites de la comparaison des droits des États membres’, 32(2) Revue Internationale de Droit Comparé (1980) p. 337 at p. 353. He stressed that ‘the contact and the osmosis between the different legal systems of the Community are done through people’ (p. 353).
16 Reuter, supra n. 14, p. 273.
17 ECJ 12 July 1957, Joined Cases C-7/56 and C-3/57 to C-7/57, Algera and Others v Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, ECLI:EU:C:1957:7, at para. 55.
18 Reuter, supra n. 14, p. 273-274, 276.
19 Pescatore, supra n. 15, p. 356-358.
20 See, among many others, ECJ 17 December 1970, Case 11/70, Internationale Handelsgeselschaft, ECLI:EU:C:1970:114.
21 The important work being done at the historical archives of the EU is, nevertheless, relevant in this regard.
22 Pescatore, supra n. 15, p. 355. The observations of Reuter are similar in this regard. For a reflection in the case law, see ECJ 12 July 1957, Joined Cases 7/56 & 3-7/57, Algera v Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, ECLI:EU:C:1957:7.
23 Reuter, supra n. 14, p. 278-279, who interestingly remarks ‘at the end of ten years of such judicial task, Community law appears richer, better structured than the image one could get from a primitive reading of the Treaties, but it does not depart from the latter’ (p. 279).
24 Reuter, supra n. 14, p. 274.
25 Such was Pescatore’s view (Fritz, supra n. 14, p. 487), but see also Reuter, supra n. 14, p. 278-279, even if acknowledging that the fundamental structure of international law remained in the Communities, given the limited scope of application of Community law (p. 283).
26 Reuter, supra n. 14, p. 276.
27 Pescatore, supra n. 15, p. 358, referring to the role of comparative law in the development of fundamental rights.
28 On the method of functional comparison and its ‘vertical’ use, see further, the section below on ‘the role of the functional method’.
29 A. Sandulli, ‘Il Ruolo della Scienza Giuridica nella Costruzione del Diritto Amministrativo Europeo’, in L. Lucia and B. Marchetti (eds), L’Amministrazione Europea e le Sue Regole (Mulino 2015) p. 273 at p. 289.
30 On the different periods of evolution of EU administrative law (and not of its scholarship), see E. Chiti and J. Mendes, ‘The Evolution of EU Administrative Law’, in P. Craig and G. de Búrca (eds.), The Evolution of EU Law, 3rd edn. (Oxford University Press 2021) p. 456.
31 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 93-94, 1441.
32 Rivero, supra n. 7, p. 389.
33 M. Cappelletti, ‘Introduction’, in M. Cappelletti (ed.), New Perspectives for a Common Law of Europe (Bruylant 1978) p. 1 at p. 3.
34 Rivero, supra n. 7, p. 390.
35 Ibid., p. 390-391, adding that: ‘If one of the countries was groaning under the yoke of an administrative dictatorship, it would be known!’
36 Ibid., p. 391.
37 Pescatore in 1980 noted that first accession largely enhanced the interest for comparative law (supra n. 15, p. 350). Rivero mapped the essential differences (p. 393-402).
38 Rivero, supra n. 7, p. 391.
39 Ibid., p. 405-406.
40 See the Schwarze’s references to Rivero: Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 8, 94 and 1440-1441, where the essential premises of Rivero’s argument are reiterated.
41 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 94.
42 That EU law was also administrative law was an important but marginal consideration in Rivero’s contribution (Rivero, supra n. 7, p. 405-06), but central to Schwarze’s work (p. 4 of the monograph cited below).
43 See, in particular, the section below on ‘the role of the functional method’.
44 Schwarze’s initial two volumes (Europäisches Verwaltungsrecht: Entstehung und Entwicklung im Rahmen der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, Nomos, 1988) were later translated into English (in 1992 in an edition by Sweet & Maxwell) and French (the two volumes were published by Bruylant in 1994). This analysis draws on the English translation that was reprinted in 2006 (Schwarze, supra n. 5). On precedent work, see Chiti, supra n. 4, p. 53-56, 65-67 and Sandulli, supra n. 29, p. 287-288.
45 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 95 and 1440.
46 E.g. Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 1370-1371 (on the rights of the defence) or p. 1430-1432 (on legal protection afforded through procedure). But see p. 539-543, and the detailed evaluation (by comparison with succinct observations concluding other chapters) of the principles of legal certainty and protection of legitimate expectations (p. 1156-1172). On ‘preliminary step’, see K. Zweigert and H. Kötz, An Introduction to Comparative Law, 3rd edn. (Oxford University Press 1995) p. 43 (‘merely to juxtapose without comment the law of the various jurisdictions is not comparative law: it is just a preliminary step’).
47 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 9.
48 Ibid., p. 54 and 59.
49 Ibid., p. 7, 38.
50 A perspective voiced in M.S. Giannini, ‘Profili del diritto amministrativo delle Comunità europee’, a piece originally written in 1967, but that only in 2003 was accessible in a re-publication in 4 Rivista Trimestrale di Diritto Pubblico (2003) p. 979, as well as by other authors in Germany (see Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 21, fn. 21, referring to the transposition of the concept ‘administration’). For a critique of Giannini but also questioning the transposition of the authority-liberty binary to EU administrative law, see B.G. Mattarella, ‘Il rapport autorità-libertà e il diritto amministrativo europeo’, 56(4) Rivista Trimestrale di Diritto Pubblico (2006) p. 909.
51 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 6.
52 Ibid., p. 38-39.
53 Ibid., p. 55 and 63.
54 Ibid., p. 59 and 62.
55 ECJ 26 April 1986, Case 294/83, Les Verts v European Parliament, ECLI:EU:C:1986:166.
56 ECJ, 15 May 1986, Case C-222/84, Johnston v Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, ECLI:EU:C:1986:206.
57 It is striking that there is no reference to this work by Pescatore in Schwarze’s book.
58 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 95, 5-6, 1433 and 1440.
59 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 95, emphasis added.
60 See above n. 49.
61 On the role of the Court, see M.P. Chiti, ‘I Signori del Diritto Comunitario: La Corte di Giustizia e lo Sviluppo del Diritto Amministrativo Europeo’, 3 Rivista Trimestrale di Diritto Pubblico (1991) p. 796; C. Harlow, ‘Three Phases in the Evolution of EU Administrative Law’, in P. Craig and G. de Burca (eds.), The Evolution of EU Law, 2nd edn. (Oxford University Press 2011) p. 444.
62 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 4, 7, and 1433-1434 (emphasis added).
63 Ibid., p. 7, and 1433-1434 (emphasis added).
64 Ibid., p. 9, 73.
65 Ibid., p. 1434.
66 Cassese, supra n. 4, p. 9 and also S. Cassese and G. della Cananea, ‘The Commission of the European Economic Community: the Administrative Ramifications of its Political Development (1957-1967)’, 4 Jarhbuch für Europaïsche Verwaltungsgeschichte (1992) p. 81.
67 Also in the second edition: Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. cxii-cviii; clxix-clxxxi; ccxxiii.
68 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 95.
69 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 1465 (emphasis added), and ccxxvii-ccxxxi (complementing it with proposals for codification).
70 ‘The principle of functionality is generally recognized as the basic methodological principle of every comparison of laws’: Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 82. He largely cites K. Zweigert and H. Kötz, Einführung in die Rechtsvergleichung auf dem Gebiete des Privaterechts, Vol 1: Grundlagen, 2nd edn. (Tübingen, 1984), the volume where these two leading scholars had made that exact claim.
71 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 1445 (emphasis added) (see also p. 82-85). See R. Michaels, ‘The Functional Method of Comparative Law’, in M. Reimann and R. Zimmermann (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (Oxford University Press 2006) p. 339, critiquing claims of monopoly as indications of ‘a lack of conceptual clarity, or a lack of theoretical sophistication, or both’ and pointing out that the lack of specification of the term hinders also the critique of functionalism itself (p. 343).
72 E. Örüsü, The Enigma of Comparative Law (Martinus Nijhoff 2004) p. 21.
73 Rivero, supra n. 7, p. 390-391. From the perspective of the functional method, see K. Zweigert and H. Kötz An Introduction to Comparative Law, 2nd edn. (Oxford University Press 1995) p. 34.
74 Zweigert and Kötz, supra n. 73, p. 39, who – reasoning in relation to private law – identify as a general rule for the comparatist a ‘praesumptio similitudinis’, i.e. the presumption that ‘developed nations answer the needs of legal business in the same or in a very similar way’ (p. 40). This has been one of the most contested points of functionalism: see, for a brief account, A. Peters and H. Schwenke, ‘Comparative Law beyond Post-Modernism’, 49(4) International and Comparative Law Quarterly (2000) p. 800 at p. 827.
75 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 1444 (and clxxxi).
76 Ibid., p. 82-85.
77 Ibid., p. 84-85, citing International Handelgeselschaft. See the section on ‘the constructive role of comparison’ above.
78 Schwarze is far from being alone in this regard: see Michaels, supra n. 71, p. 362-363.
79 Zweigert and Kötz, supra n. 73, p. 35.
80 See n 22 above.
81 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 253.
82 Ibid., p. 718, 861 and 864 (in relation to proportionality).
83 Ibid., p. 223.
84 For his assessment of the comparative study on equality, see ibid., p. 670-74, referring to the origins of a principle in EC law – litigation or preliminary reference questions – or how it was specifically received (e.g. the influence of the nationality of the Advocates General, see p. 939-940, in relation to legal certainty and legitimate expectations).
85 See, e.g., ibid., p. 677-678, 709. With regard to proportionality, for example, Schwarze noted the differences between the principle as elaborated in German law and in EC law (p. 855), but these were not an obstacle to analysing it from that same angle (p. 853-864).
86 See, e.g., ibid., p. 858.
87 Even if of course aware that ‘legal principles can assume different forms and take on different meanings according to their legal context’: ibid., p. 97. The references in the text are from Giannini, supra n. 50, p. 984, 987.
88 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 7.
89 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 861 (here with reference to the principle of proportionality) and p. 1174 (in relation to principles of the administrative procedure), respectively.
90 In a way, it transcends the separation between the public and private spheres typical of liberal constitutional thinking. I owe this point to Michal Krajewski.
91 Ibid.
92 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 1465.
93 Ibid., p. 1464. The citation is from U. Everling, ‘Der Gerichtshof als Entscheidungsintanz’, in J. Schwarze (ed.), Der Europäische Gerichtshof als Verfassungsgericht und Rechtsschutzinstanz (Nomos 1983) p 137.
94 E.g. J-B. Auby and J. Dutheil de la Rochère, ‘Introduction’, in J-B. Auby and J. Dutheil de la Rochère (eds.), Traité de droit administratif européen (Bruylant 2007); Harlow, supra n. 61, p. 445.
95 See, further, Chiti and Mendes, supra n. 30. For a different method, see G. della Cananea and M. Bussani, ‘The “Common Core” of Administrative Laws in Europe: A Framework for Analysis’, 26(2) Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law (2019) p. 217.
96 This and the following two paragraphs are from J. Mendes, ‘The EU Administrative Institutions, Their Law and Legal Scholarship’, in P. Cane et al. (eds.), Oxford Handbook on Comparative Administrative Law (Oxford University Press 2020)
97 Auby and de la Rochère, supra n. 94, p. 6, 19.
98 Chiti and Greco, supra n. 8, ‘Introduzione’.
99 Even where featuring in handbooks, as in Auby and Rochère, 2007 and 2014. See also J.B. Auby (ed.), L’influence Du Droit Européen Sur Les Catégories Du Droit Public (Dalloz 2010) and M. Bobek, ‘The Europeanisation of Public Law’, in A. Von Bogdandy et al. (eds.), The Max Planck Handbook in European Public Law, Vol. I: The Administrative State (Oxford University Press 2016) p. 631, ⟨https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2757116⟩, visited 16 November 2022.
100 Auby and Rochère, supra n. 94, p. 15.
101 M. Shapiro, ‘The European Court of Justice’ in P. Craig and G. de Búrca (eds.), The Evolution of EU Law (Oxford University Press 1999); Harlow, supra n. 61, p. 445.
102 S. Cassese, ‘L’Arena Pubblica. Nuovi Paradigmi per lo Stato’, 3 Rivista Trimestrale di Diritto Pubblico (2001) p. 601.
103 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. clxxxii.
104 On social engineering through comparative law, see Michaels, supra n. 71, p. 351-352.
105 On the use of the term style, see Loughlin, supra n. 1.
106 Loughlin, supra n. 1, p. 112.
107 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. ccvi-ccvii.
108 Bobek, supra n. 99.
109 The diversity of administrative legal systems in Europe was well noted in Rivero, supra n. 7. On the importance of diversity for contemporary studies of administrative law, see F. Velasco Caballero, ‘Introdución al Derecho Administrativo’, in J.M. Rodríguez Santiago et al., Tratado de Derecho Administrativo. Volumen I. Introdución. Fundamentos (Marcial Pons, 2021), p. 39.
110 For a similar claim in relation to French administrative law, see J.-B. Auby, ‘La Bataille de San Romano. Réflexions sur les Évolutions Récentes du Droit Administratif’, L’Actualité Juridique – Droit Administratif (2001) p. 921 at p. 926. On perfectionism, see J. Bomhoff, ‘Perfectionism in European Law’, 14 Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies (2012) p. 75.
111 J. Schwarze, ‘Enlargement, the European Constitution, and Administrative Law’, 53(4) International and Comparative Law Quarterly (2004) p. 969 at p. 984.
112 F. Brito Bastos, ‘Doctrinal Methodology in EU Administrative Law: Confronting the “Touch of Stateness”’, 22(4) German Law Journal (2021) p. 593.
113 Schwarze, supra n. 5, p. 4.
