Abstract

Substantive Administrative Law and Administrative Court Procedure: An Intra-disciplinary Enquiry into their Legal Impact on each other

In German legal doctrine, substantive and procedural issues are normally kept apart. Ever since the Roman actio was split up into a substantive right and a way to sue in the 19th century, the relationship between the two fields has been uneasy. This seems especially to hold true for Public Law, where both are separated in theory and yet have never been fully untangled—witness the special remedy (Anfechtungsklage) upon which the administrative courts can not only declare unlawful but directly quash and annul administrative decisions. Taking the separation seriously, the paper explores in what ways both fields interact legally. This leads to a focus on norms that, upon events on one field, ordain consequences on the other; and it leads to the realisation that the two basic types of such consequences—effecting changes in rights and duties (Gestaltungswirkung), or adjudicating them without changing them (Feststellungswirkung)—are not specific to one field or the other.