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Manual On Good Administration Principles

Legal Basis

The concept of “vested rights” grounds on the principle of “State of law”
prescribed in Article 2 of the Constitution. Indeed, one feature of State of
law, which can be summarised as the fact that all the administrative bodies
are bound by law and respect the general principles of the law, prevents
arbitrary behaviours of the administration and abuse of power. In this
regard, it is duly required by the nature of a state of law not to interfere
with the lawfully and legitimately vested rights except there is another
legitimate justification prespecified or envisaged by law.
Article 6 of the Code of Good Administration attached to the
Recommendation No. CM/REC (2007)7 of the Committee of Ministers of
the Council of Europe to member states on good administration lays down
the following by which the procedures of the protection of vested rights
are emphasised:

“Public authorities shall act in accordance with the principle of legal
certainty.
They may not take any retroactive measures except in legally justified
circumstances.
They shall not interfere with vested rights and final legal situations except
where it is imperatively necessary in the public interest.

It may be necessary in certain cases, in particular where new obligations
are imposed, to provide for transitional provisions or to allow a reasonable
time for the entry into force of these obligations.”
Under the second paragraph of Article 10 titled “ Legitimate Expectations,
Consistency and Advice” of the European Code of Good Administrative
Behaviours”, emphasis is made on the fact that the official shall respect the
legitimate and reasonable expectations that members of the public have in
light of how the institution has acted in the past.

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