Kai kurie bendrosios kompetencijos, konstitucinių ir administracinių teismų santykio aspektai

Abstract

First part of the article shortly introduces the history of development of administrative justice in Europe and background for the establishment of administrative courts in Lithuania. Prevailing legal ideas in Lithuania during the interwar period as well as relevant sightings of today‘s legal academics are discussed. The author notes that the idea of establishment of specialized administrative courts was widely discussed in Lithuania during the interwar period already, although this idea was not at that time realized, and that by establishing the system of administrative courts in 1999, Lithuania has followed the common model of continental European countries.
Further on, legal and organisational preconditions for the origin of substantive administrative justice and establishment of administrative courts in the national legal system, such as particularity of administrative disputes, coherent need of specialization of judges and adequate number of administrative cases in courts, are analyzed. The influence of „mixed“ model of administrative justice (where a big role is played by so called pre-trial quasi-judicial institutions), chosen by Lithuania, over the possibility to handle administrative cases without undue delay is indicated.
The article ends with evaluation of similarities and differences between the competence and functions of administrative courts, Constitutional Court and courts of general jurisdiction. The author notes that the present court system in Lithuania closely resembles the model discussed in the interwar period – the court controlling the legality of the acts of parliament (Constitutional Court), the court controlling the legality of the acts of Government (administrative courts) and the court solving legal disputes between the citizens (courts of general jurisdiction).
Describing correlation of functions of administrative courts and Constitutional Court, the author notes that administrative courts are quite active „clients“ of the Constitutional Court, thus in some part recompensing the absence of direct constitutional petition in Lithuania. As the competence of administrative courts and the Constitutional Court in Lithuania is clearly divided, the author discusses a problem whether the administrative court, verifying the legality of normative administrative act falling under its jurisdiction, is also competent to verify the constitutionality of the act without referring this question to the Constitutional Court.
As most jurisdictional conflicts in practice have arisen between the administrative courts and courts of general jurisdiction, the author describes the functioning of special chamber of judges, the main task of which is to decide whether issues of whether the case is amenable to the jurisdiction of the court of general jurisdiction or to the administrative court. He also tends to find appropriate criteria for such attribution. The problem described is illustrated by some aspects of judicial practice, disclosing the peculiarity of legal relations, falling under the competence of different jurisdictions.