"The reformation of European administrative law"

Recent legal scholarship has focused on the harmonization of national procedure through the case law of the European Court of Justice. In this paper, I cast the net more widely, to include harmonization of procedure through Community legislation, namely directives. Judicial and legislative harmonization of national administrative law are part of the same phenomenon and should be examined as such. Once considered together, I argue, the possible effects of procedural harmonization for Community and the Member States come into focus. First, drawing on American literature that critically assesses similar developments in American administrative law, I suggest that expanded access to courts and administrative agencies might impair the quality of administrative policymaking in the Member States. Interest groups might distort the policymaking process, courts might unduly interfere with expert agencies, and agency action might be delayed. Second, again relying on the American reaction to the “ferment” of the 1960s and 1970s, I argue that the direction that Community harmonization has taken might compromise the constitutional powers of national parliaments and governments over state administration, to the advantage of national courts