The essay analyzes the evolution of the Austrian system of protections
against the Public Administration, through a diachronic analysis that
highlights the convergence and differentiation profiles with respect to
the traditional model typical of civil law systems.
After having illustrated the developments of administrative justice
towards increasingly less judicial forms, the analysis focuses on the
innovations introduced by the constitutional reform of 2012, which
brings to completion the process of progressive approximation of the
Austrian legal system to the European model of administrative justice,
today characterized by clear centrality of the means of jurisdictional
protection towards the PA and the enhancement of the subjective
conception of jurisdiction.
The essay ends, on the one hand, with some reflections on the
repercussions of the new model on two cornerstones of dogmatics
relating to the theory of the State: the democratic principle, in relation
to the representation-responsibility-political direction-administrative
implementation circuit; the principle of the rule of law which wants, at
the same time, an independent judiciary and the full justiciability of the
administrative action. On the other hand, it underlines that, looking at
the state of implementation of the reform — although still relatively
recent —, the new administrative judges are actually working as an
instrument of protection of rights, as well as a guarantee of the rule of
law, thus confirming the constitutional character acquired by the
European administrative justice systems, in constant tension between
the subjective and objective legal protection.
