(Un)Constitutionality of the provisions on administrative silence in the Law on Administrative Disputes of the Republic of North Macedonia

Abstract

In May 2019, the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia passed a new Law on Administrative Disputes, marking the beginning of the third phase in the development of administrative dispute procedures in the country. This law took effect one year later, on May 25, 2020. The law introduced several significant changes to the administrative dispute system: the scope of administrative disputes was expanded; new guiding principles for administrative disputes were established; the administrative judiciary was tasked with ensuring consistency in its rulings (which can be seen as a move towards developing a case-law system); the judiciary was given the power to fine public authorities that fail to cooperate; and new mechanisms such as model-procedure and model-decision were introduced. In this sense, the 2019 Law on Administrative Disputes represents a positive reform, enhancing judicial oversight over public authorities. However, the Law on Administrative Disputes from 2019 also altered the rules for filing lawsuits in cases of “administrative silence” or “silence of the administration” – when the administration fails to issue a decision (individual administrative act) within the prescribed deadlines. The aim of this article is to explain how the new rules for filing lawsuits in response to administrative silence are unconstitutional and should, therefore, be repealed. In that sense, in the paper the authors shall pay attention to the Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of North Macedonia, from July 2024, to initiate a procedure for evaluating the constitutionality of the respective provision of the Law on Administrative Disputes.