The Netherlands/Pays-Bas

In the past years, Dutch administrative law has been revised to become more efficient and more expeditious. This trend continues with several new acts and proposals. Both the uniformity and transparency of the legal system as a whole and of administrative law in particular remain of attention. After an initial reform of the administrative justice system, the Minister of the interior has now announced a proposal that will abolish two of the supreme administrative courts. Finally, the boundaries between private law and public law are shifting. Cases are redistributed over the various courts, both in the recent Act on compensation for acts of administrative bodies and in the proposal for administrative court reform. The new distribution of competence is not based on a dogmatic distinction between private and public law, but on pragmatic considerations about the expertise of the various courts.