More say for the public in administrative decisions (France)

In France, making it easier for the public to deal with red tape is supported in law by a key piece of legislation, dated 12 April 2000, "on the rights of citizens in their relations with the administration" which defines a series of actionable rights.

Now the Governemnent is planning to build on 12 years of successful implementation to introduce a number of additional facilities, and filed a bill (draft legislation) in June, which was voted by the upper chamber (Sénat) on 19 July. Here are some of the planned improvements:

1. "lex silencio:" i.e. when the administration does not respond before the end of a two-month period from completion of the application (including supporting documentation), it is presumed that the application is granted; this is a general principle already in force for some procedures, but which it can be quite difficult to apply: the new clauses introduce a number of clarifications to make it workable in a greater array of permits/applications;

2. the bill offers to allow the government to issue (subject to ratification by Parliament) primary legislation on two important issues:

- within 12 months, defining the cases and conditions in which members of the public can "seize" administrative services (file an application, request a service, seek information, etc.) in electronic format, and receive an actionable answer in the same form;

- administrative code: the bill contains a clause whereby Parliament devolves to the government the preparation and adoption witin 24 months of a "code of relations between the administration and the public." This code will consolidate existing general provisions concerning administrative non-contentious procedures, which will be reviewed and simplified where possible. It contains several new elements, in particular a clause calling for more participation of "the public" (previous concept: "citizens") in the preparation of administrative decisions.

All-in-all, this is a very interesting document for Better Regulation experts, showing how a well designed legal framework can make life easier for citizens, while preserving legal security for administrative services.