A recent programme for cutting red tape and simplification of administrative procedures for businesses is currently underway in Portugal. This programme is a part of the general simplification agenda of the Portuguese Government, known as SIMPLEX.

The programme is divided into four different phases, each one addressing simplification measures regarding a different group of activities: i) environment; ii) construction, urban planning and industry; iii) commerce, services and tourism and iv) agriculture.

The first phase, involving the simplification of environmental procedures, was recently completed with the approval and publication of the Decree-Law 11/2023, of 10 February. It addresses simplification measures on the major environmental procedures, such as environmental impact assessment, environmental licensing, licensing for the use and recycling of water, procedures for greenhouse gas emissions, licensing on waste and report obligations.

However, this law addresses not only environmental procedures but also other general procedures with impacts over all the Public Administration through amendments to the Portuguese Code for Administrative Procedure and the general law on simplification of procedures and administrative modernization (Decree-Law 135/99, of 22 April).

The Decree-Law 11/2023 of 10 February uses different techniques to achieve simplification, of environmental procedures such as i) the elimination of unnecessary licenses and administrative permits/procedures on environmental issues; ii) the replacement of licenses and permits by communications to the Public Administration; iii) the elimination of permits for issues already addressed in previous procedures for environmental impact assessment; iv) the adoption of new cases where the absence of administrative decision after the deadline has positive effects over the request presented (‘positive administrative silence’); v) the elimination of unnecessary/duplicated environmental reports and vi) the obligation to provide e-gov tools to reduce burdens on environmental reporting.

On what concerns general rules for administrative procedures there are also relevant tools to analyze, such as i) a new mechanism to certificate by electronic means rights arising from the absence of administrative decisions in due time with positive effects over the request; ii) new rules to count the time for the administrative decision allowing for more transparency and accountability and iii) prohibition to issue mandatory opinions within the procedures if the time has elapsed, as well as some others.

This paper aims to present the programme for the simplification of burdens for businesses, to identify the new simplification measures recently adopted by the Decree-Law 11/2023, of 10 February on environmental procedures and general procedures in Portugal and to study the techniques and tools used.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Czech Code of Administrative Justice, the primary regulation of judicial proceedings in the administrative justice system in the Czech Republic. Its adoption was a reaction to the shortcomings of the previous legislation, which was no longer in line with the requirements of administrative justice in relation to the legal order, both from an institutional and a procedural point of view. The right to judicial review of acts (and omissions) of the public administration is usually part of the democratisation measures in post-totalitarian states, of which the Czech Republic is one. Judicial review of public administration has thus developed in the Czech Republic as part of the democratic ideology of civil society. This corresponds to the very purpose or mission of the Czech administrative judiciary, which is primarily to protect the rights of individuals. The Code of Administrative Justice is therefore by its nature a 'defensive' norm rather than a 'control' one. It is primarily intended to provide legal protection in cases where public administration interferes in the legal sphere of natural or legal persons. It is the alleged interference with public subjective rights that forms the threshold criterion for standing.

On the other hand, the Code of Administrative Procedure also contains significant exceptions to these characteristic principles of administrative justice or their deviations and specific manifestations. Probably the most significant are the exceptions related to the protection of the public interest. While the pursuit and protection of the public interest is the inherent aim or essence of public administration, its protection within the framework of judicial control over the activities of the public administration is not the main principle of administrative justice. And while it can be said that the protection of individual rights is also in the public interest, it is not uncommon for the protection of the public interest to be in tension with the protection of individual rights.

One of the areas in which this tension has occurred to a significant extent in the Czech Republic is in the area of photovoltaic power plants, where executive authorities have granted permits to the operators of such plants in a manner contrary to public interest. The unlawfulness of such licences therefore did not constitute an infringement of the legal rights of the recipients of the public administration, but rather an impairment of the public interest.

Judicial review of public administration in these and similar cases primarily protects the public interest, or rather objective law, based on so-called public interest actions, which can be brought to remove unlawful administrative acts by entities authorised to do so (the Supreme Prosecutor's Office, The Office of The Ombudsman, the Ministry of the Interior in matters of self-government, etc.). Although public interest actions are an exception to the principle of protection of public rights in the administrative justice system, this does not mean that they run counter to the purpose of the administrative justice system, since it can be argued that the purpose of the administrative justice system in a broader sense is to ensure the legality of administrative actions and, consequently, to press for the cultivation of public administration as a whole.

However, the protection of the public interest in the context of administrative justice is also a matter for consideration in proceedings on an application which primarily seeks to protect public law rights. This was clearly demonstrated in the case of emergency measures taken by executive bodies to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 disease during the pandemic. These emergency measures thus pursued one of the most important public interests, namely the interest in protecting life and health. At the same time, however, these public emergency measures often significantly interfered with the rights of individuals, often even fundamental ones. The lawfulness of these extraordinary measures was then subject to assessment by the administrative courts, which, in protecting public subjective rights, were not allowed to disregard the public interest pursued by the measures, or rather, that interest had to be carefully weighed. Furthermore, in the context of administrative justice, the public interest is also crucial in relation to the conditions for granting suspensory effect to an administrative action, where the granting of suspensive effect to that action must not, inter alia, be contrary to an important public interest.

The paper will deal with the aforementioned ways protection of public interest in judicial review of public administration decision-making, in light of the fundamental mission of administrative courts, which is often the contradictory protection of public law rights of individuals.

Data protection is an increasingly important and regulatory harmonised area in the European Union. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as the most crucial legal act on the field came in force in May 2018, so all EU Member States had to comply their national legislation accordingly in due time. This was unfortunately not the case in Slovenia, since the new law has been adopted just recently, published in December 2022 and valid since 26 January 2023.

This paper is dedicated to an evaluation of new Slovenian law from procedural aspects. Namely, GDPR allows MSs to regulate these issues autonomously as long as substantive rights set by GDPR are guaranteed effectively and equivalently. However, Slovenian legislator has chosen to regulate various procedures, parties to these procedures and their positions (locus standi) as well as attributed rights rather in a very complex and even disputable manner. There, I intend to critically analyse said procedures, parties’ positions and rights in Slovenian Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA, Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, no. 163/22) through the lenses of GDPR purposes and systemic national legislation regarding administrative procedures. Hereby, Slovenian law will be also faced with recommendations of European Data Protection Board from October 2022 upon parties to the procedure, deadlines, complaints and investigative powers. I will also show that PDPA should be more consistent with General Administrative Procedures Act and Inspection Act as over time well established Slovenian statues complied with constitutional guarantees, where PDPA brings new “solutions” that are sometimes contrary to holistic concept of administrative procedures. For instance, it is stipulated that affected data subject files an application in inspection supervision, run by regulatory authority, i. e. Slovenian Information Commissioner, upon which IC is obliged to imitate such a procedure and there is an option od dispute resolution. On the other hand, IA and GAPA regulate procedures in questions as strictly official ones to protect public interest and not primarily individual rights of an affected persons who have other legal options to demand retribution, therefore no option of an agreement.

The research question to answer, is: What is the procedural landscape of data protection rights in Slovenia and to which extent it is effective according to GDPR and Slovenian Constitution? Methods applied to study procedural issues in data protection area in Slovenia as an EU MS will be the following: literature review (e.g. commentaries to GDPR), normative analysis of GDPR, PDPA, IA and GAPA with special attention to their hierarchy, comparative insights and selected case law (e.g. Simmenthal rule via C-106/77, and C‑34/21, and recent national cases of Supreme and Constitutional courts), and statistical overview of various procedures according to Information Commissioner’s annual reports in last years. Consequently, the paper might serve as a tool to improve national legislation in practice, and among scholars to study and develop comparatively more consistent and harmonised solutions, based on the awareness of an importance of procedures to effectively exercise substantive rights.