This article on the usefulness of a general codification of administrative law forms the closing contribution of a NALL-special. In this special, various authors have reflected on the successfulness of a broad codification process in 1998, which introduced rules on the notification of decisions, policy rules, subsidies, enforcement and supervision of administrative authorities in the Dutch General Administrative Law Act (GALA). The editors asked the contributors whether the objectives of the rules introduced were met and how the rules turned out to function in practice. In this overarching article, the NALL-editors reflect on the general lessons to be learned for the GALA-legislator. In these lessons they also take into consideration the initiatives for a law of administrative procedure of the European Union.

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.