The Emergence of the Institution for Appealing Administrative Acts in the Late Soviet Period

The paper is devoted to the principal stages in the development of the institution of appeals against decisions, actions, and omissions to act of officials and public administrative bodies within the Soviet legal order, which subsequently served as the foundation for the institution of appealing against administrative acts in contemporary Russian law. The study provides a detailed examination of the development of a special procedure for appealing administrative acts in the USSR. It identifies the reasons why the relevant special law was adopted only twelve years after the enactment of the 1977 Constitution of the USSR that had expressly mandated the drafting and adoption of such legislation. Drawing upon archival materials, the author describes the stages of the legislative process, outlines the views of legal scholars concerning judicial review of administrative acts, and discusses the reasons for the suspension of work on the draft law. The paper also presents a comparative analysis of the initial version of the draft law elaborated by the responsible commission and distributed among the Councils of Ministers of the Union republics for comments and proposals, with the laws ultimately adopted in 1987 and 1989. In conclusion, the author notes that the issues raised during the early development of special legislation in the Soviet period may remain relevant for contemporary lawmakers in post-Soviet states in the field of administrative procedural law.

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