Buena administración, principio democrático y procedimiento administrativo

Abstract

Answer the question of whether the right to good administration has a connection with the democratic principle, primarily understood as representative democracy, entails to determine the character attributed to this right since its normative recognition at European level. Since the good administration includes a set of procedural rights, the relations it maintains with the democratic principle strengthen in those events where the administrative procedure operates as means for applying the law to particular cases through adjudication. Here the administrative procedure plays a part in democracy, because it is used to materialize what a democratic act of Congress defines. Conversely, and according to the elements that are recognized as part of the right to good administration at the European level, the relations it maintains with the democratic principle weaken when the administrative procedure is used to complete the law through rulemaking. Hence, this paper intends to determine when administrative rulemaking procedures can contribute to the democratic legitimacy of administrative agencies. The distinction between the two concepts – democracy and participation – allows us to identify under which circumstances the Public Administration can legitimate through administrative procedure