Every person and organisation deals with the acts of administrative organs: decisions, orders, notices and refusals that define rights and obligations. The General Administrative Code of Georgia subjects these instruments to a unified legal regime. It defines what an individual administrative-legal act is, the form and the requisites with which it must be issued, when it enters into force, how it is published and officially notified, how errors in it are corrected, and when it is regarded as a non-act or may be declared invalid. On this foundation stands the institution of the administrative appeal — the mechanism by which a violated right is restored at the level of the administrative organ itself, and this page walks through that entire construction step by step.
The Individual Administrative-Legal Act and Related Notions
The Code starts from precise definitions. An administrative organ is every state or municipal organ or institution, every public-law legal person (apart from political and religious associations), and also any other person that exercises public-law powers on the basis of Georgian legislation. An interested party is any natural or legal person, or administrative organ, in relation to which an administrative-legal act has been issued, or whose legitimate interest is directly and immediately affected by such an act or by an action of the administrative organ.
An individual administrative-legal act is an individual legal act issued by an administrative organ on the basis of administrative legislation, which establishes, changes, terminates or confirms the rights and duties of a person or of a limited circle of persons. The Code extends this definition in two practically important directions. First, a decision of the organ to refuse to satisfy an applicant on a matter within its competence also counts as an individual act — a refusal is thus a full-fledged legal act, not merely silence. Second, a document issued or certified by the administrative organ which may be followed by legal consequences likewise constitutes such an act. An act may also be issued electronically — by automatic means of management, provided it satisfies the requirements of the Georgian law on electronic documents and trusted electronic services.
The individual act is distinct from a normative administrative-legal act, which contains a general rule of conduct designed for permanent or temporary and repeated application. The Code further recognises an act of endowment, which grants an interested party a right or benefit, and the administrative contract — a civil-law contract concluded by an organ with a natural or legal person, or with another administrative organ, for the purpose of exercising public powers. The freedom of an organ to choose, on the basis of protecting public and private interests, the most acceptable decision among several lawful options defined by legislation is characterised by the Code as a discretionary power.
Form and Requisites of the Act
An individual administrative-legal act is issued in writing or orally. Where it is written, the law prescribes the requisites it must contain:
- the type of the individual administrative-legal act;
- the organ that issued the act;
- the title of the act;
- the surname, first name and signature of the authorised person;
- the time and place of issuance;
- the registration number assigned by the issuing organ.
The broader requirements for justifying an act are established by other provisions of the Code, and their violation may itself be treated as a ground for the unlawfulness of the act; in practice the issuing organ must adhere to them in full. The presence of the requisites, by contrast, is directly verifiable: the external appearance of an act can always be examined, and this frequently proves decisive when a complaint is being prepared.
Entry into Force, Publication and Official Notification
Issuing the act alone is not enough — it must be clear when it starts to operate. Unless legislation provides otherwise, an individual administrative-legal act enters into force for the party upon its notification in the manner prescribed by law, or on the day of its publication. Publication takes place only in cases provided for by law, and the act must be published in the corresponding official print organ.
Distinct from publication, public announcement means the open placement of the act in the administrative organ, at a place accessible to everyone; where necessary, the act is publicly announced also in another public place. Official notification, unless the law provides otherwise, means the handing over of the act to the party or its dispatch by post. Taken together, these rules determine the moment from which the right to appeal arises for the person and from which the appeal period begins to run — which makes them among the most consequential norms of the entire regime.
Correction of Errors, Amendments and Partial Nullity
An error left in an act does not always imply its unlawfulness. The administrative organ is entitled to correct technical errors, as well as errors committed in calculation, in an individual act it has issued. The right to introduce amendments or additions into an administrative-legal act belongs to the organ that issued it, and an amendment or addition is introduced under the same procedure established for the preparation and issuance of the act — the amended act must pass through the same lawful process as the original.
A partial annulment is also possible: a part of an act may be declared invalid or lost in force, and this must be done in compliance with the same requirements that the Code lays down for the non-act and for the declaration of invalidity. In other words, a part of an act is struck down under the same conditions under which the whole act would be struck down — the law simply allows the surviving remainder of the act to stay in operation.
The Non-Act and the Declaration of Invalidity
Some defects are so fundamental that the act never acquires legal force at all. Under the Code, an administrative-legal act is deemed a non-act from the moment of issuance if:
- it is impossible to determine the organ that issued it;
- it was issued by an organ or a person without competence;
- its performance is impossible for factual reasons;
- its performance would entail a criminal or an administrative offence.
A non-act generates no legal consequences and needs no separate annulment, although in practice the circumstance often requires public confirmation. The Code separately regulates loss of force: the right to declare an administrative-legal act lost in force belongs to the administrative organ that issued it. The distinction is substantive — a non-act is void from the start, whereas an act declared lost in force ceases to operate for the future.
The Right of Appeal and the Deadline as the Remedy
The Code crowns this regime with the right of appeal: an interested party is entitled to challenge an administrative-legal act issued by an administrative organ. The administrative appeal itself is a written demand submitted by the interested party to the competent administrative organ in the manner established by the Code, for the purpose of restoring a violated right — demanding the annulment, amendment or new issuance of an act of the same or a subordinate organ, or the performance or abstention of a specific action by the organ.
The deadline here is decisive. An administrative complaint must be submitted within one month from the day of publication of the act or of its official notification, unless otherwise established by law. An action of the organ must be challenged within one month from the day the corresponding interested party learned of the performance of the action or of the abstention from it. Where the organ violated the time limit for issuing the act — a situation regarded as a refusal — no appeal deadline is set at all. And a missed deadline must be restored where it was missed due to irresistible force or another valid reason.