Folia Theologica et Canonica 11. 33/25 (2022)
Recensions
250 RECENSIONS tive power. This naturally includes the decisions and decrees of the supreme authority of the Church, but also of the local ordinaries, which belong to the administrative competence of the Church, such as appointments, transfers and removals, alienation of property, the administrative imposition of criminal sanctions, the granting of licenses and authorizations, the establishment and suppression of ecclesiastical institutions, etc. Although the legislator has finally abstained from establishing a system of administrative courts at diocesan level, leaving the Apostolic See as the sole administrative court within the universal Church, it is nevertheless clear that the application of administrative law is becoming increasingly important for the functioning of the Church in the 21st century. Despite the fact that this area may seem to be a completely new one in canon law - since it is a fact that previously there was no independent administrative law within canon law - the regulation of the above-mentioned acts, which were already found in Roman law, was sufficiently emphasized in the collections of canon law and was included in organized form within the Decretum Gratiani (1140) [i.e. Szuromi, Sz. A., Canon law historical background of categories of the canonical singular administrative acts, in Studia Canonica 49 (2015) 643-660], When the new Code of Canon Law came into force (November 27th 1983), the most influential basic works of this field were primarily related to Eduardo Labandeira, Julio García Martin, Jorge Miras, Javier Canosa, Eduardo Baura, Peter Forest and Paolo Gherri. The present volume - which was originally defended as a doctoral dissertation in 2011 - has been published for the first time in English by Jonas Achacoso in 2018, also edited by the Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona). Now we have a revised Spanish version of it. The work is divided into five chapters, which, after introductory remarks, are followed by a general outline of the canons and rules of administrative procedure (pp. 23-44). The author then lists the concepts and terminology of administrative law, the differences between general and specific administrative acts, their definitions and types (pp. 23-26). However, he also discusses the administrative process itself and its terminology, the common rules which apply to it (pp. 27-35), and the description of the form of De Procedura in Decretis Extra Indicium Ferendis (p. 36). He also presents some aspects of the common rules of administrative process: substantive law, procedural and formal characteristics, as well as the classification of administrative processes (pp. 37-43). The author presents in the second chapter the development of the canonical rules on administrative process (pp. 45-80), primarily by describing the canonical sources. Here he goes back - quite rightly - to a review of the regulations and their content which preceded the 1983 codification. He not only explains the curial praxis of the High Middle Ages, but also the rules of the 14th and 15th centuries which applied to the Apostolic Chancery (pp. 46-49).
