VU Law Faculty on November 16th hosted a scientific-practical discussion on the challenges of administrative justice in Europe, which was organized and moderated by of prof. dr. Jurgita Paužaitė-Kulvinskienė. The speakers, legal experts and practitioners from Lithuania, France and Romania, discussed the importance of administrative courts and the peculiarities of their system in different European countries.
Before the discussion began, Sylvain Mérenne, President of the Association of European Administrative Judges, gave a presentation giving an overview of the administrative court system in European countries. He considered that the system of administrative courts in Lithuania is one of the best examples in Europe showing that a state can in a short period of time create an effective system of defence against unlawful decisions of public authorities.
The moderator of the discussion, the head of the Science Centre of Administrative Law and Administrative Justice at the VU Law Faculty, emphasised that administrative courts successfully contribute to the development of the narrative of procedural legal culture, pointing out that their mission is not only to protect the rights of the individual human being, but also to ensure the protection of the legitimate interests of companies carrying out economic activity, thus contributing to the development of the economic development of the state. Following on from this, Dr Irmantas Jarukaitis, Judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), shared interesting examples of cases in which the Court has developed the direction of the single market and the economic community, which was the original aim of the European Community. As the discussion moved on to the cases of administrative courts established in national states, Dr. Gediminas Užubalis, Partnership Professor at the Vu Law Fcaulty and President of the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court, identified the current problem in Lithuania: “We have a declining quality of regulation. The government is trying to create legal certainty, but the result is uncertainty”. Prof. Tomas Davulis, Judge of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania, shared his positive insights, arguing that legal debate is crucial, and that a judge’s duty is to focus on humanity and to seek to understand citizens’ demands. Prof. Dr. Skirgailė Žalimienė, President of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania, told that the Court is very flexible and regularly consults with the CJEU.
Other panellists presented the administrative justice system in their countries. Andreea Marchidan, Judge of the Romanian Supreme Court, explained how the administrative court system works in Romania. S. Mérenne said that although France has had administrative courts for a long time, only recently the decisions of administrative courts have been gaining more attention in the press and in society.
The audience was given the opportunity to ask questions and share their insights. One question in particular reflected the current situation – will artificial intelligence replace judges? In response, CJEU Judge Irmantas Jarukaitis raised the question: do we need efficiency and do we need faster case processing? In those cases where the judge’s value vision is not required and the facts are assessed within the boundaries of the public administration entity’s clearly defined competence, where there are no discretionary decisions, the application of AI does not seem to pose a major challenge. However, in cases where the judge has to perform a value balancing test, it would be difficult for a computer machine to change the judge’s competence.
