This contribution scrutinizes the effect of the General Administrative Act (Algemene wet bestuursrecht) on the doctrine of administrative supervision (bestuurlijk toezicht), especially on the (governmental) power of spontaneous annulment (spontane vernietigingsrecht) towards local authorities. In 1998 the legal provisions concerning administrative supervision have been transferred from the Local Government Act (Gemeentewet) to the General Administrative Act. Since then the doctrine was subject to several major changes, from which the 2006 Policy document on spontaneous annulment (Beleidskader spontane vernietiging) and the 2012 Act on re-vitalizing general supervision (Wet revitalisering generiek toezicht) are the most important. The provisions from the General Administrative Act concerning administrative supervision have hardly been changed; case law concerning spontaneous annulment mainly concerned the interpretation of the Policy documents. The provisions regarding administrative supervision and laid down in the General Administrative Act, can therefore be seen as of constant value of administrative supervision.

Article 3:41 General administrative law act reads: Orders which are addressed to one or more interested parties shall be notified by being sent or issued to these, including the applicant. If an order cannot be notified in that manner, it shall be notified in any other suitable way. This article examines the extent of 'any other suitable way' and whether the objectives of the legislator have been achieved.

In 1998 a chapter on administrative enforcement was added to the GALA (in the so-called third Tranche). This contribution reflects on the legislative aims of this Tranche; to what extent these aims have been attained and what important developments have occurred since. As the third Tranche has led to little reform, a brief review will suffice. The developments after the third Tranche are discussed extensively, concerning both the third Tranche - amongst others the obligation in principle to enforce ('beginselplicht tot handhaving') - and reparatory sanctions since the fourth Tranche (2009), which amongst others regulated the execution of administrative reparatory sanctions and added regulation on administrative fines (a punitive sanction). Additionally, more general provisions of administrative law enforcement are discussed. The development of administrative enforcement are reflected against general developments in administrative law, such as harmonization and the increase of litigation. Lastly some bottlenecks will be noticed and solutions proposed.

With the aim to reduce administrative burden for supervised many inspections are 'deduplicated': similar groups of citizens are treated similarly and similar activities are carried out in the same way within one organization. Deduplication should increase flexibility within the inspection as inspectors are able to fulfill their job in any domain. Deduplication is based on the fulfillment of two conditions. The first is that the enforcement tools, or the powers that perform these inspections, are not too different. The second relates to the use of these instruments that has to be somewhat uniform as well. These conditions are assessed in a case study of the Transport and Water Management Inspectorate. It is concluded that in particular the style of rule enforcement differs and is not easy to standardize.

In the case of Byankov the Court of Justice ruled as follows: EU law must be interpreted as precluding legislation under which an administrative procedure that has resulted in the adoption of a prohibition on leaving the territory, which has become final and has not been contested before the courts, may be reopened - in the event of the prohibition being clearly contrary to EU law - only in circumstances such as those exhaustively listed in Article 99 of the Code of Administrative Procedure, despite the fact that such a prohibition continues to produce legal effects with regard to its addressee. This study discusses how the ruling can be placed in the case law of the Court that in accordance with the principle of legal certainty, EU law does not require that administrative authorities be placed under an obligation to re-examine a national final administrative decision.

If two or more educational institutions intend to merge, such institutions must obtain approval from the Minister of Education prior to merging in accordance with the “Educational Merger test Act” (Wet fusietoets onderwijs) which came into force on 1 October 2011. Since then, further to the implementation of the Educational Merger test Act, the Minister of Education has taken several decisions on merger requests from educational institutions. Prior to delivering a decision on a merger request the Minister of Education is advised by its advisory committee ("Adviescommissie fusietoets onderwijs"). This article describes and analyses the legal framework put into place be the Educational Merger test Act. It further analyses the functioning of the Act in its first year of existence and proposes solutions for problems found. The article in this respect focuses on the advice of the advisory committee.

The legislator deliberately created a more restrained compensation duty for the legal costs made in the objection procedure, than for the costs made in the appeal procedure. According to article 7:15 of the Dutch General Administrative Law Act, solely the legal costs made in the objection procedure are reimbursed at the request of the stakeholder, as far as the contested decision is revoked by reason of the tort due to the administration. The administration decides on this request when deciding on the objection. There are several disadvantages to this. That is particularly the case, when the stakeholder has lost his interest in the revocation of the contested decision during the procedure, and he solely wants his costs, made in the objection procedure, reimbursed. This raises the question of whether it would be better to regulate the legal costs made in the objection procedure in the same way as the legal costs made in the appeal procedure.

This article examines the actual application of European administrative soft law in light of the Dutch principle of legality. European administrative soft law is not legally binding. However, European administrative soft law can generate judicial binding effects for the Member States on the basis of the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice. Moreover, the research on the actual application of administratice soft law in the field of European subsidies shows that it can also have a 'de facto' binding effect for the Member Sates.

The (legal and actual) binding effects of European administrative soft law are problematic in light of the principle of legality, according to which binding norms must be laid down in hard law. The article argues that with the application of administrative soft law, three functions of the principle of legality (the principle provides legal certainty and legitimacy and serves as a safeguard against public authorities) are not sufficiently met. Several possible solutions that may resolve this tension are proposed.