An administrative act produces immediate legal effects.
Administrative act is the declaration that is expressed voluntarily within the framework of the actions of the public function and has the particularity of producing, immediately, individual legal effects. In other words, it is a type of act within the legal field consisting of an expression of administrative power that can be imposed imperatively and unilaterally.
As they are declarations, the material acts of the public administration are not included within its administrative acts; The latter, on the other hand, are classified as executive because they do not require authorization from the Judiciary to establish their characteristics and for them to be mandatory.
Classification of administrative acts
There are many currents that have been responsible for identifying the different types of administrative acts; Among all of them, the most accepted is based on the segmentation carried out by Gabino Fraga . According to this theory, acts could be classified:
- Due to its nature : the will of the person who performs them is taken into account. If their objective is to modify the law or cause an effect on the rights it regulates, they are legal. If it does not have the intention to cause legal effects but is created for the purpose of executing public administration powers such as street paving or cleaning, they are called material or execution acts.
- By the wills that allow its creation : depending on the organizations that form it, they can be unilateral if it only affects the organization that carries it out, or plurilateral if they express the will of two or more people or entities. Among the plurilateral acts are collegiate acts, collective acts, conditional acts and contractual acts.
- Due to the relationship that exists between your will and the law : according to the rights and obligations imposed by the law, the acts can be mandatory (also called regulated or linked, people or entities must abide by all aspects imposed by the law and there is no room for individual decisions) or discretionary (certain licenses are allowed and people can make decisions). It is necessary to highlight that both acts are observed by law, so neither can ignore the conditions that it determines.
- By the radius in which their actions have an impact : in this classification we can differentiate between internal and external acts. The first refer to those actions carried out to regulate the internal functioning of the law in an administration. The latter comprise the most important activities of the State, through which it itself orders and controls the action of internal or individual acts.
- Due to their purpose : they are intermediaries, or they act as tools so that the fundamental acts of administrative activity have an effective destination. According to the reason for which the acts are carried out, they can be divided into preliminary ( actions that are essential for the Administration to perform the powers of the Public Power, directly or indirectly affecting individuals), decision (unilateral declarations of will where the modification, extinction or recognition of a specific subjective legal situation is recorded) and of execution (actions that must enforce the resolutions taken and administrative decisions in all acts carried out by individuals, whether material or legal in nature) .
- Due to its content and legal consequences : in this classification others can be found that allow us to differentiate between acts carried out to expand the legal sphere, others to limit said sphere and those that allow proof of the existence of a State .
An administrative act is a voluntary manifestation in the context of the performance of the public function.
Other classifications
When the classification of administrative acts obeys those to whom they are intended, a distinction can be made between those of a general nature (their recipients are not determined) and those of a singular nature (which are directed at an individual).
The acts may also maintain a link with previous regulations. They are, in these cases, regulated administrative acts (related to a rule that determines their content), as opposed to unregulated ones (when you can choose between different resolutions).