A cassation court traditionally has two tasks: a unifying task and a corrective task. The unifying task consists of verifying the internal legality of a lower court’s decision (the correct application and interpretation of the law by the lower courts). The corrective task refers to verifying the external legality of the lower court’s decision. The cassation court must ensure that the decisions of the courts concerned are in conformity with the requirements of proper administration of justice. This article focuses on the following question: is it necessary that the Belgian Council of State, acting in the capacity of a cassation court, performs both traditional tasks (corrective and unifying)? This is by no means self-evident, given the specific judicial structure in which the Belgian Council of State operates.

The contribution assesses Germany’s better regulation system as quality assurance system. At first, the paper outlines the development of the system over the last years and describes its main characteristics. The introduction of the Nationaler Normenkontrollrat (National Regulatory Control Council) in 2006 can be seen as a cornerstone in this respect. The competency of the National Regulatory Control Council was extended in 2011 and a new concept of cost measurement of regulatory costs - compliance costs - was introduced. The new concept captures not only the costs arising from information obligations, but all compliance costs of a regulation. Secondly, the paper discusses the challenges to the better regulation system, in particular, those due to Germany’s federal structure providing in most legislative areas for a separation of actual law making at the federal level and execution of laws by the German Länder (and their municipalities).

In the theory, legislation and practice of regulation and conduct of administrative procedures, trends towards the concept of good administration can be detected at both supra- and national levels. Based on normative and comparative-legal analyses of Slovene (1999), Croatian (2009) and the EP Resolution (2013) administrative procedure acts (APAs), the article identifies user-oriented institutions that pursue the principles of good administration. Furthermore, it examines acceleration and braking mechanisms that influence the duration of procedures (e.g. setting and shortening time limits, positive fiction, preclusions, and enforcement of procedural errors, broader participation of affected parties, legal protection). Timely and efficient decision-making viewed as a human right with balanced protection of public and private legal interests is in fact crucial for achieving good administration. Hence, in conclusion, the authors propose selected changes de lege ferenda for the reregulation of APAs in Slovenia and beyond, in support of less excessive length of procedures.

Given the rise of mediation in other legal disciplines and the influence of the EU, the call for mediation is increasing in Belgian administrative practice. Several years ago, the legislature took the first steps towards mediation in the judicial administrative procedure. This contribution is a study of the existing forms of mediation with its limitations and possibilities. Taking these findings into account, a possible mediation framework, applicable in the Belgian legal system, is proposed.