On the Nature of Judicial Review of Administrative Normative Documents

Administrative Normative Documents are simultaneously administrative and legal which determines that there are objectively two different types of judicial review for administrative normative documents, namely administrative trial review and legal applicability review. From the perspective of review conditions and results, the judicial review of administrative normative documents stipulated in the current Administrative Litigation Law can only be considered as a legal applicability review. The legal applicability review is a necessary part of judicial trial, and is not a unique issue in administrative litigation. It is not only related to administrative normative documents and should not be specifically stipulated in the Administrative Litigation Law, but should be stipulated in the Constitution or the Court Organization Law. From the perspective of legal applicability review, there are also many problems in the current law regarding the intensity and procedures of judicial review. Finally, the legal applicability review cannot fulfill the function of legal supervision over administrative normative documents. China still needs to consider the necessity and possibility of establishing some kind of administrative trial review.