It is more inconvenient if the proceeding of an authority (tax, health, transport, environmental, labour etc. authority) is brought at the request of the adverse party or ex officio because such proceedings are always aimed at adopting some kind of an administrative decision which orders you to do something or prohibits you from doing something.
In the course of its proceeding, the administrative body delivers rulings and adopts resolutions on the merits of the case in matters required for furthering or continuing it. Administrative resolutions may be adopted as a result of a procedure regulated in law and should comply with specific content and formal requirements. The authority is not entitled to make decisions arbitrarily in matters belonging to its own scope of consideration either and should render detailed accounts of the aspects of consideration in its resolution. If a resolution fails to comply with legal regulations or violates lawful interests, remedy may be sought through an appeal against the resolution, as the case may be, using the services of a Hungarian lawyer. If it is established by an authority based on the appeal that its decision violates law, it may amend or revoke the decision. Otherwise the appeal against the decision will be adjudged by the second-instance authority.
The authority of the second instance shall examine the contested decision and the proceedings preceding it; in this examination the authority shall not be bound to what is contained in the appeal.
The authority of the second instance may annul the decision and order the authority of the first instance to reopen the case if the available data and information are insufficient to adopt a decision in the second instance, when new facts are brought to its notice or if further evidence is required to ascertain the relevant facts of a case, or shall proceed to obtain additional evidence on its own accord, and shall adopt a decision accordingly.
Therefore, it is essential to present all factual and legal arguments in detail for your position in the appeal and in the second-instance phase of the procedure, as the case may be, using the services of a Hungarian lawyer. Later you have no further opportunity to do so or you may do so only within rather limited frameworks. The second-instance resolution is final and enforceable and no further appeal lies against it.
Administrative action
If your appeal against a resolution was not successful, or if the authority acting in the second instance might have changed the resolution as a result of the adverse party’s appeal unfavourably for you, you have to do nothing else but to request the court to review the resolution, as the case may be, using the services of a Hungarian lawyer. Review may also be initiated on the grounds of illegal conduct when adopting the second-instance resolution. The claim shall be submitted to the first-instance authority, however, the administrative action against the second-instance authority will be conducted before the administrative and labour court. Enforcement of the resolution shall not be suspended upon lodging the claim, however, the claimant may request that enforcement is suspended.
An administrative action is conducted apparently in frameworks similar to those of a civil action, however, its content is quite different. In an administrative action no evidence may be taken – or it may be taken only in exceptional cases – and the court will decide based on the documents and the facts presented by the parties. Consequently, the court adopts a judgment, as a rule, without holding a hearing unless one of the parties requests holding of a hearing. The only purpose of an administrative action is to review whether the resolution and the underlying procedure were lawful.
If the court founds the resolution unlawful (with the exception of any violation of procedural rules that do not effect the merits of the case), it will annul the administrative resolution and, as necessary, order the authority adopting the administrative resolution to reopen the case. The court acting in the administrative action is entitled to change a resolution only in some exceptional cases listed in the relevant act.
The court’s decision is not subject to ordinary forms of review and a petition for special remedy may be submitted to the Supreme Court of Justice (in Hungarian: ‘Kúria’) only in exceptional cases, when the court’s conduct was unlawful, as the case may be, using the services of a Hungarian lawyer. Therefore, before you elect to launch the proceeding, you are definitely recommended to consult a Hungarian lawyer specialized in this field and to entrust him/her to prepare the legal arguments if the review is justified.
If you have any questions relating to administrative procedures, you may contact us also via our online consultancy column.
