Can a municipality appeal against its own (remedial) decision?

In its ruling of October 8, 2025, the Administrative Law Division of the Council of State was confronted with a remarkable situation: a municipality and municipal council that appealed against a remedial decision taken by the council itself.

What was at stake in this case? In an interim ruling, the Division had instructed the council of the municipality of Oss to remedy deficiencies in a zoning plan. Following the interim ruling, the council took a remedial decision and thereby amended the zoning plan. Subsequently, both the council and the municipality of Oss lodged an appeal against that remedial decision and refused to withdraw it.

The question that the Division now had to answer was whether the council could appeal against its own remedial decision and whether the municipality could lodge an appeal against the remedial decision of its own municipal council. The Division ruled that it could not. The purpose of allowing appeals is to offer interested parties legal remedies against government actions, not to give the council the opportunity to undo its own corrective decision. In addition, the Division ruled that the municipality could not appeal against the corrective decision either, because it had not been demonstrated that the municipality's interests were directly affected by the corrective decision.

This is an important ruling, because the Division has emphasized that the judiciary cannot be burdened with tasks, in this case the annulment of a recovery decision, that should be carried out by administrative bodies themselves.

You can read the ruling here.