Rawlings, Richard --- "Complaints systems and EU governance – a new look" [2017] ELECD 432; in Harlow, Carol; Leino, Päivi; della Cananea, Giacinto (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 490

Book Title: Research Handbook on EU Administrative Law

Editor(s): Harlow, Carol; Leino, Päivi; della Cananea, Giacinto

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784710675

Section: Chapter 20

Section Title: Complaints systems and EU governance – a new look

Author(s): Rawlings, Richard

Number of pages: 29

Abstract/Description:

The plea that alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in general – and complaints systems in particular – should be recognized as an important aspect of administrative law is not a novel one in the comparative literature. Contributing to a richer conception of administrative justice than does the familiar focus on courts and/or administrative tribunals as the main machinery for handling disputes with public authorities, such systems are of potentially great significance not only for the individual citizen but also for the routines of public business and application of law and for the promotion and embedding of good governance values. As broadly defined in terms of institutionalized means for redress of grievance by officials, ombudsmen and other non-judicial actors, complaints machinery itself represents an important input function of administration in our consumer-oriented societies. This argument though has special resonance in the EU context. Operationalized perhaps on a cross-border and pan-European basis, flexible and responsive means of redress fit with the challenge of a fragmented and fluid system of governance that features myriad practices of indirect, direct, networked, and/or shared administration. Meanwhile, the input function stands as a voice for individuals as well as groups in the face of a determinedly elite, even haughty, supranational bureaucracy. A key theme of the chapter is the expanding and increasingly variegated role of complaints systems in EU governance.