Procedural Defects of Administrative Acts

The article addresses the problem of procedural defectiveness of administrative acts, which has not yet been examined extensively in Russian legal literature. The article provides a definition of procedural defects of administrative acts and offers a brief comparative overview of the issue in legal systems of France, Germany, the UK, Bulgaria and Poland. The paper demonstrates historical development of the theme in the Russian legal doctrine while special attention is paid to the analysis of the current Russian law and application thereof. By a number of examples the author substantiates the thesis that contemporary administrative law of Russia contains sufficient ground for theoretical conceptualization of the notion of substantial procedural defects of administrative acts. The author puts forward a set of criteria for classification of procedural defects into substantial and non-substantial and argues that such differentiation constitutes a particular manifestation of general legal trends.