La notion de droits acquis en droit administratif français
Institution:
Paris 2Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
Linked to the demand of legal certainty and to the protection of the citizens' interests, the term "vested right" is met in several fields of administrative law, such as the principle of non-retroactivity, the withdrawal (retrait) and the abrogation (abrogation) of administrative acts, as well as the interpretation of laws in the sense of non-retroactivity. Similarly to the private law doctrine, the doctrine of public law had always difficulties to define the concept of vested rights in such a way that the definition wald be coherent from a conceptual point of view and explanatory of both statutory and case law. That has led either to the denial of the utility, and even the meaning of this concept, or to the adoption of a functional approach, according to which the vested right is a right to the maintenance of the act that create right. Taking into consideration the necessity to identify the meaning of the vested rights' concept which, despite several critisisms, dominates both statutory and case law concerning the temporal application and conflicts of legal norms, and after having observed the defaults of the above-mentioned functional approach, our thesis proposes to demonstrate that vested rights in french administrative law are rights to the maintenance of an "acquired situation", that is iof a situation that has been created by a administrative act or by a fact and has evolved in time in the framework of the process of the materialization of an administrative institutionl the identification of these rights results from the interpretation by the judge of an "acquired situation", interpretation based upon the institutional data of each case. Therefore the nature of vested rights depdnds on the institutional nature of each situation. Once identified, vested rights influence - according to their nature - the validity and or the applicability af new legal norms and their violation may also engage the responsibility of the public authority.
Abstract FR:
Lie a l'exigence de securite juridique et a la protection des interets des administres, le terme "droit acquis" est rencontre en droit positif actuel en matiere de principe de non-retroactivite, de retrait et d'abrogation des actes administratifs, ainsi qu'en matiere d'interpretation des lois au sens de non-retroactivite. Or, comme la doctrine du droit prive, la doctrine du droit public a eu toujours du mal a definir la notion de droits acquis de maniere que sa definition soit coherente du point de vue conceptuel et explicative du droit positif. Cela a conduit soit a nier l'utilite, voir le sens, de cette notion, soit a adopter une approche fonctionnelle, selon laquelle le droit acquis est un droit au maintien de l'acte dit createur de droits. Compte tenu de la necessite d'identifier la signification de la notion de droits acquis qui, malgre les critiques suscitees, domine le droit positif en matiere d'application et de conflits des normes juridiques dans le temps, et apres avoir constate les invonvenients de l'approche fonctionnelle mentionnee ci-dessus, notre these se propose de montrer que les droits acquis en droit administratif francais sont des droits au maintien d'une situation acquise, c'est-a-dire d'une situation qui est creee par un acte administratif ou par un fait et qui a evolue dans le temps dans le cadre du processus de la materialisation d'une institution administrative. L'identification de ces droits est le resultat d'une interpretatioin faite par le juge de la situation acquise, interpretatioin fondee sur les donnees institutionnelles en cause. La nature des droits acquis depend donc de la nature institutionnelle de la situation en cause. Une fois identifies, les droits acquis influencent - selon leur nature - la validite et ou l'applicabilite des nouvelles normes juridiques et leur violation peut aussi engager la responsabilite de la puissance publique.