Mendes, Joana --- "Participation and Participation Rights in EU Law and Governance" [2009] ELECD 352; in Hofmann, C.H. Herwig; Türk, H. Alexander (eds), "Legal Challenges in EU Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Legal Challenges in EU Administrative Law

Editor(s): Hofmann, C.H. Herwig; Türk, H. Alexander

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847207883

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Participation and Participation Rights in EU Law and Governance

Author(s): Mendes, Joana

Number of pages: 31

Extract:

10. Participation and participation
rights in EU law and governance
Joana Mendes*1

1. INTRODUCTION

Participation is ubiquitous in EU law and governance. Participatory
phases are found in decisional procedures defined in many regulations and
directives, be these an obligation impinging upon Member States, be they
a procedural duty of EU administrative bodies, either determined by the
EU legislator or self-imposed. Participation can, therefore, be seen as a
dominant feature of the governance arrangements which have developed
over the last decades.12
However, since participation has manifold meanings, the extent of this
pervasion may be deceptive. This is the case if one intends participation as
the procedural intervention of natural and legal persons whose substantive
rights and interests are potentially affected by a Community regulatory
measure, with a view both to ensuring the procedural protection of those
rights and interests and to attaining an accurate representation of the
factual situation based on an exact representation and consideration of the
interests involved on the part of the deciding body.
This chapter argues that there is a mismatch between, on the one
hand, the powers exerted by the European administration, particularly
taking into account the effects which they may have in the legal sphere of
persons concerned, and, on the other, the procedural guarantees which are
afforded to them under the right to be heard as this has been developed
by the European Courts (ECJ and CFI). Considered the core of the rights
of the defence, the right to be heard, ...