|
|
AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
Show panel list
The principles of good governance as tool for promoting good public administration in Africa: some comparative views
| Panel |
16. New ways of managing public administrations in Africa ?
|
| Paper ID | 389 |
| Author(s) |
Coller, Elizabeth Helena van
|
| Paper |
No paper submitted
|
| Abstract | Good administrative conduct is conduct that follows the constitution, the laws and policies of a government that are designed to ensure effective service delivery by the administration. The principle or concept of good administration is closely related to the general doctrine of ‘the right of the defence’, one of the general principles of European Community law, as developed by the case law of the European Court of Justice.The right of defence is also codified as part of the right to good administration in section 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
There is no explicit reference in the European treaties to the concept of good administration, though most Member States have adopted a variety of rules of good administrative behaviour in some form or another. The courts have developed a lot of procedural grounds related to the principle of good administration, which include principles such as transparency, access to information, good faith, administrative justice etc. This right to good administration is also analogous to the right to a fair trial guaranteed by Article 6 ECHR in providing for a non-exhaustive list of procedural guarantees.
The office of the European Ombudsman has further been created together with a Code of Good Administrative Behaviour that gives effect to the right to good administration in sec. 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This code contains general principles of good administrative behaviour which apply to all relations of the Institutions and their administrations with the public.
In the African context, there is no official definition of good governance within the legal frameworks that form the framework for the African Union. A number of African countries do have a right to administrative justice in their constitutions, a right which appears to have at its core principles of good governance. The South African Constitution provides a good example of the right to administrative justice contained in Section 33(1) of the Constitution that states that ‘everyone has the right to administrative action that is lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair.”
Principles of good governance and the right to good administration is essential in order to establish and improve the key principles of the public administration, which focuses on service, independence, responsibility, accountability, efficiency and transparency. This paper will seek to address some legal and institutional reform initiatives in Africa that can help to improve weak efficiency and low capacities of African public administrators.
|
|