Administrative Discretion: Questions and Answers (Part 2)

This article continues the series of scientific publications planned by the editors of the Siberian Legal Review, the Authors of which analyze the problem of administrative discretion (discretion), which is very relevant for the Russian administrative law theory and practice, in the “question-answer” format. In the domestic legal literature, one can find various definitions of administrative discretion; they are also contained in the legislation of a number of post-Soviet states. Pointing out the shortcomings of some definitions of the named concept, Yuri P. Solovey proposes to define administrative discretion by the choice made by public administration of a variant of solving a managerial issue in the form of an administrative act (regulatory or individual), corresponding, in its opinion, to the requirements established by law for administrative acts, in conditions of insufficient legal certainty of goals, grounds, conditions, content, situation, place, objects (addressees), subjects, procedure for registration, procedure and (or) terms (time) for the adoption of an administrative act. In response to the question about the appropriateness of such an approach to understanding the concept under consideration and the call to formulate his own definition of administrative discretion, Petr P. Serkov agrees with the critical assessments of the mentioned definitions of the concept of discretion. At the same time, in his opinion, the study of the phenomenon of administrative discretion does not involve the interpretation of this phrase, as a result of which the other definitions of discretion are born, but, first of all, the clarification of its content. The latter is impossible without referring to the logical construction of the mechanism of administrative legal relations, since discretionary decisions are filled to the maximum extent with the immutable logic of the emergence and development of this mechanism, available for reproduction and control. Meanwhile, the analytical potential of this construction, unfortunately, remains unclaimed in the theory of modern administrative law. Petr P. Serkov concludes that administrative discretion functions in the naturalness of legal reality, formed by legal regulation, including due to the ideological content of the norms of administrative law, and their state mental coercion as an unalternatively necessary component of legal regulation.