Party to the Procedure in Issuing Building Permits

Abstract

The paper analyses the specific definition of the term party to the procedure in
issuing building permits in compliance with the provisions of the Construction
Act. Even though the General Administrative Procedure Act (GAPA) regulates
prerequisites for departures from the provisions in special legislation, special regulation
of administrative proceedings in accordance with provisions of individual
special laws is a departure from, and even contradictory to, the aforementioned
provisions of the GAPA. Such departures have also been observed in several
provisions of the Construction Act and this paper analyses them considering
the party to the procedure in issuing building permits. Although the GAPA has
provided the appropriate regulation of the notion of the party and defined the
means which may be applied in the administrative procedure to obtain a building
permit, the legislator has opted for special regulation through provisions of
the Construction Act, regardless of the fact that justification and purpose of such
special regulation is nowhere required or presented. In order to additionally present
issues related to relevant regulation of the notion of the party in accordance
with the provisions of the Construction Act, the paper reviews regulation of the
party in sources of the EU law, in relevant case-law, and within the framework
of an empirical research. It emphasises the question of purposefulness of special
regulation regarding the notion of the party to the procedure in issuing building
permits. In order to test the hypothesis presented in Introduction, the author uses
inductive and deductive methods, analysis and synthesis, as well as descriptive
statistical methods to interpret some of the results of the empirical research for
the purpose of this paper. Grammatical, logical, and teleological interpretation
methods are used to interpret the sources of law.