New Hungarian Institutions against Administrative Silence: Friends or Foes of the Parties?

Abstract

The Programme for the Reduction of Bureaucracy launched by the Hungarian government in 2015 has several directions, such as rethinking of the system of administrative organs, reshaping of civil service, simplification of administrative procedures, and fight against administrative silence, as well. New codes on the administrative procedure and on the judicial review of the administrative decisions were passed in 2016 and 2017, and the sectoral regulation has been transformed, as well. The most important change of the sectoral procedural rules was the replacement of procedures for permissions to a simple duty of notification. The authors investigate, if these institutions really help to reduce the burdens citizens and companies have in connection with bureaucracy: whether they are efficient tools against administrative silence and really are improving the situation of the parties vis-à-vis the administration and fostering good administration. They also take a closer look on the newly established action for failure to Act I of 2017 on the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (in force since 2018) intended as an additional tool, as well as its other new institutions addressing the problem of silence of administration.