When a party applied to an agency and was refused or given no answer, which complaint asks the agency to act?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
In practice material of this kind, we check the party's application to the administrative agency, any written refusal or decision received in reply, and any record showing that the agency has not answered the application at all.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading treats the performance complaint as reaching only what follows from the party's own application: an administrative agency's refusal that is unlawful or unjust, or its inaction on that application, and its effect is to require the agency to take a particular disposition.
Another reading notes a boundary the provision draws by its wording: a performance complaint presupposes an application the agency left unanswered or refused, so a grievance about a disposition the agency took on its own initiative does not fall within this complaint, however unlawful it may be.
Your judgment
If the agency has neither refused nor answered, how could the file show the point at which the inaction began to be a refusal or an omission of this kind?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the provision is amended to change which applications may ground a performance complaint, or if a court decision clarifies when an agency's silence counts as the inaction this complaint reaches.