Administrative Code

the legislative act that systematically presents laws pertaining to a certain area of administrative legislation. In the USSR the first administrative code was adopted in the Ukrainian SSR on Oct. 12, 1927 (Sbornik Ustavov UkrSSR, 1927, nos. 63–65, p. 240). Of great importance to the development of Soviet administrative law, this code was composed of 15 sections: general regulations; administrative acts; administrative sanctions; compulsory administrative measures; labor conscription for preventing and combating natural disasters; the duties of the population in protecting public order; Ukrainian SSR citizenship and its acquisition and loss; registration and statistics of population movement; societies, unions, clubs, congresses, and meetings; regulations on organized worship; public spectacles, entertainment, and games; the use of the USSR state flag and seals; the supervision of industry by administrative agencies; the supervision of trade by administrative agencies; and the procedure for lodging complaints against actions of administrative agencies. The adoption of the Ukrainian SSR administrative code was preceded by a draft of an administrative charter worked out in the RSFSR in 1924. This charter was renamed the administrative code in 1925 (the draft was not confirmed).

There are two points of view regarding the extent and nature of administrative codes. (1) An administrative code should conform to the system of administrative law in force; it is proposed that it be renamed the code of Soviet administration. (2) The administrative code should regulate the relations between state agencies and citizens in the process of state administration and include those norms that establish general principles of Soviet state administration and administrative procedure, as well as norms regulating administrative punishments.

Other socialist countries have no administrative codes, although administrative legislation has been unified in special codes covering a narrow range of topics. Thus, the Code of Administrative Procedure was adopted in Poland on July 14, 1960. On July 12, 1950, Czechoslovakia adopted an administrative and criminal law containing detailed regulations and qualifications of administrative offenses in all branches of government and the Code of Criminal Procedure, defining administrative procedures in the investigation and hearing of administrative offenses. Hungary adopted a law on general decrees of the administrative process on June 9, 1957.

With the exception of Portugal, capitalist states also have no administrative codes. Portugal has a collection of laws known as the administrative code which does not contain a system of legislative norms for administrative law or any substantial legislation regarding domestic affairs. In France there is a so-called administrative code which is actually a privately compiled collection of normative acts, of various types and published at different times, which regulate the activity of agencies of the central administration, state services, prefectures, and municipalities, as well as certain aspects of market trade and rules for highway traffic.