Finding the Relevant Law Pertaining to a Claim by a Judge; Focusing on the Precedent of the Administrative Court of Justice

Judicial process has steps that include "finding the relevant law pertaining to a claim by a judge" or, more precisely, determining the legal norm applicable to the claim under consideration. Finding the correct relevant law is a prerequisite for rendering a correct decision. However, this is often not an easy task, and judicial authorities must take into consideration various elements, which differ according to whether statute exist or not. If a statute exists, among the elements involved the following can be mentioned: adhering to relevant legal norms, being reliable, mandatory, valid, clear concerning its relationship with competing statutes, and correct understanding and interpretation of the statute in question. In the absence of a statute, the following elements should be considered: the possibility or impossibility of referring to other sources, the method of selecting a reliable source, of extracting the norm from the selected source, of resolving possible conflicts between extracted norms, and the possibility or impossibility of direct application of the selected norm. Of course, each of these elements comes with challenges. Understanding these elements and challenges, focusing on the precedent of the Administrative Court, is the main goal of this article, which is done in a descriptive-analytical method.