'Administrating human rights': the experience of the EU's Fundamental Rights Agancy

There are obvious and essential links between human rights (often referred to as fundamental rights in the internal EU context) and administrative action – also at the level of the EU. Administrative law may negatively interfere with human rights positions. At the same time good administration is in itself an entitlement guaranteed by human rights as most prominently evidenced by Article 41 of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights (ECFR). The relevance of administrative law has not always been that visible in EU law. Arguably, it was also under the influence of the ECFR that initiatives were taken towards a ‘Law of Administrative Procedure of the European Union’ that would bring together existing rules and principles that are scattered across a wide variety of sources. But, when thinking of the human rights profile of the EU, is ‘administration’ the first branch of government that comes to mind? Or is it rather the judiciary adjudicating on human rights conflicts or the legislature drafting rights-relevant legislation? Most probably, this depends on the perspective of the observer and without any doubt all three branches of government are crucial for the respect, protection and promotion of human rights. Still, remaining in an EU context, for decades only the Court was designing the EU’s human rights commitment. The legislature came in far later, adopting in the 1980s, for instance, legislation in the field of data protectionor at the beginning of the last decade, the equality directives.