Right to fair trial and administrative authority

The right to a fair trial is enshrined in the article 6§1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and irradiates now all French law. In the context of the subjectivization of the law, administrative law is also subject to this "unstoppable rise of disputes in the name of the right to a fair trial" (Mrs. KOERING-JOULIN). This assertion is particularly true regarding the powers of sanction and the settlement of disputes granted to the administrative authorities. The European definition of the right to a fair trial applied by the Court of Cassation and adapted by the Council of State allows a wide application of this right. So, given the current state of the administrative case law, the right to a fair trial can be usefully claimed against independent administrative authorities as regard either their law enforcement activities or litigation practice. And the tax administration has also been compelled to respect this fundamental right for eight years now. In line with this settled jurisprudence, the extension of the right to a fair trial to all the administrative authorities may be the way of the future. But such an evolution raises a few questions. Isn't the increasing jurisdictionalization of the administration activities as a result of the right to a fair trial an inconsistency in itself? Doesn't it go against the primary goal of the outsourcing of the administrative penalties? More fundamentally, doesn't subjecting the administrative authorities to the specific principles of court procedures participate in reinstating some confusion between administration and jurisdiction? Isn't it the rebirth, under a new form, of the administrator-judge we thought was long gone?