Litigation costs in the contentious-administrative jurisdiction

Abstract

Judicial expenses generated by a process are not a trivial matter. From the perspective of the plaintiff before the contentious-administrative jurisdiction, judicial expenses may constitute an economic barrier when litigating; not so much for the public administration, because it plays its role in the process with the taxpayers’ money. But judicial expenses are also a compensatory element of those who, forced to litigate, show that they were right. Either by applying the objective criteria (“the one who loses, pays”) or the subjective one (“the one who litigated recklessly or in bad faith, pays”), it is a question of the winner of the process being able to emerge unscathed –or almost– from it. This article shows the case law keys on the treatment of litigation costs in the varied circumstances that can lead to the conclusion of the process and the judicial powers in the moderation of its amount. The article addresses these issues with a good dose of pragmatism.

Keywords:

litigation costs, objectivecriteria, subjective criteria, imposition of litigation costs, amount of litigation costs, moderation of litigation costs