Judicial Control of Administrative and Legislative Acts in France

In recent years there has been an interesting and very remarkable extension of judicial control over the acts of the administrative authorities in France. The doctrine of recourse in annulment for excess of power, in particular, has undergone such an extraordinary development that it is probably safe to say that there is now no other country where private rights are better protected against arbitrary and illegal acts of public officers. It is an interesting fact also that this protection has not been created by legislation but is mainly the work of the council of state, and, to a less degree, of the court of cassation, the two supreme judicial tribunals of France.The solicitude which the council of state, especially, has shown for the protection of individual rights and the independence which it has exhibited as over against the government by whom the councillors of state are appointed and by whom they may be removed at pleasure is a sufficient answer to the criticism of those English and American writers who assert that the French administrative courts are the docile and servile instruments of the government, and that in controversies between the administration and private individuals their decisions are generally in favor of the administration.