Administrative Courts in Europe: common trends and requirements

This article focuses on administrative courts in Europe. It has three main themes. First, there is a retrospective, which serves to seek to understand why some courts deeply involved in the business of government have failed somewhere, while other courts have succeeded elsewhere. Second, the paper considers current trends in Europe. It distinguishes two variants of specialization, based on administrative courts and specialized panels within civil courts, respectively. Thirdly, the article considers the balance between judicial independence and accountability.