Correlation good administration - good governance in the context of Romania's integration in the European Union

• Author: Florina Ramona Preda (Muresan)
• Profession: University of Bucharest, Romania
• Pages: 118-135

Correlation good administration – good governance in the context of

Romania’s integration in the European Union

PhD. student Florina Ramona PREDA (MUREȘAN)

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Abstract

In this study we will deal with the right to good administration which includes:

any person’s right to be heard before taking any potentially harmful individual action;

people’s right of access to their own file, in compliance with legitimate rights regarding

confidentiality and professional and trade secrecy; administration’s obligation to state

the grounds for their own decisions. We will mainly introduce the most important aspects

regarding cen tral and local public administration’s adaptation to the concept of good

administration and good governance throughout Romania’s integration in the European

Union. Additionally, the study will analyse the characteristics of good governance: polit-

ical dimension of the concept, which involves a competitive multi-party system in the

democratic policies and observance of human rights; institutional dimension represented

by ho w the country’s affairs are managed; the technical dimension capitalised by the

management quality and institutional capacity. Esta blishment of the European Ombuds-

man by the Maastricht Treaty, taken ove r in Romania by the institution of the People’s

Lawyer, creates the premises of a control over the public institutions or public authorities

with regards to maladministration.

Keywords: good administration, good governance, administrative control, ad-

ministrative reform

JEL Classification: K23, K33

1. General grounds

Good governance constitutes an essential security and prosperity condi-

tion, the instrument by which the democracy goes from the conceptual and theo-

retical level to the level of real life. It is the cumulative unit of measurement by

which social life validates the result of the democratic elections, tests the realism

of programmes and the capacity of the political forces to accomplish their prom-

ises, in strict observance of democratic principles.

Good governance evaluates the success of measures to combat insecurity,

inequity and poverty and sets out the appropriate correction measures. The main

factors involved in this process are the state and the civil society, the rule of law

representing a key feature of good governance. The state bodies participating to

democratic good governance are: legislative power, executive power, judiciary

power, local public authorities. The main non-state actors are: political parties;

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Florina Ramona Preda (Mureșan) – „Nicolae Titulescu” University of Bucharest, Romania,

av.muresanflorina@yahoo.com.

Contemporary Challenges in Administrative Law and Public Administration 119

unions, employers’ associations and other professional organisations; non-gov-

ernmental organisations and other forms of participation to the civil society; man-

agement bodies of public interest companies; mass-media.

An important role in the consolidation of stability and security of the new

democracies in the Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe is proven by the

states and societies’ capacities to promote an efficient management of the public

interests, to guarantee an efficient and responsible exercise of power, in full har-

mony with the democratic principles and the requirements relating to human

rights and their observance. The first steps in the affirmation of the European

Union as a democratic structure were seen in the attempt to transpose at European

level the national mechanisms of the representative democratic model.

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This af-

firmation is supported by article 10 (1) Treaty on the European Union

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according

to which “the functioning of the European Union shall be founded on representa-

tive democracy”, which proves that in the European Union, as a whole, and in

each Member State, as a part, representative democracy is consolidated.

By the White Paper regarding European governing of 2001

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, the Euro-

pean Commission launched a major reform of governance with a view to

strengthening its democratic character and proposed four main amendments: a

better involvement of citizens, clear definition of policies and legislation, in-

volvement in the global governance and setting objectives for institutions and

political environment.

Although over the past years the European Union has taken important

steps towards allowing the beneficiaries of the decisions made by the European

institutions – the Union’s citizens – to actively participate to making such deci-

sions, one may see a poor communication by European institutions with citizens

and a poor involvement of citizens in the decision-making process or a failure to

become aware of the rights conferred by the European treaties. The civil society

itself should follow the principles of good governance. Article 11 of TUE insti-

tutes representative democracy” (1) The institutions shall, by appropriate means,

give citizens and representative associations the opportunity to make known and

publicly exchange their views in all areas of Union action. (2) The institutions

shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative as-

sociations and civil society. (3) The European Commission shall carry out broad

consultations with parties concerned in order to ensure that the Union's actions

are coherent and transparent.

The past experience shows that the good governance has sometimes been

in jeopardy as a consequence of the activities conducted by some groups of ille-

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Constanța Mătușescu, Institutional Law of European Union, ProUniversitaria Publishing House,

Bucharest, 2013, p. 141.

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Treaty on the European Union, published OJEU, C 326/13 din 26.10.2012 consolidated version.

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White Paper of the European Commission, COM (2001) 428.