Commentary on developments in administrative law, particularly judicial review of administrative action by common law courts.
Last September I participated in a University of Toronto symposium on the career of Justice Rosalie Abella. The papers from the symposium are to be published in the University of Toronto Law Journal. A pre-publication version of my piece, “The Autonomy of Administration“, is now available for download on SSRN: Justice Rosalie Abella is closely […] Read more
In previous posts (here and here) I have introduced the concept of the duty of candour in judicial review proceedings and described the centrality of the ‘record’ to judicial review of administrative action. In this post, I will consider several barriers to disclosure of relevant information which further limit the content of the record and […] Read more
In a recent interview with Yves Faguy for CBA/ABC National, the Chief Justice of Canada, Richard Wagner, was asked about the risk that courts would ‘backslide’ into old practices and give up some of the technological advances made during the COVID-19 pandemic: N: You co-chaired the Action Committee on Court Operations in Response to COVID-19, which […] Read more
Like many others, I have enjoyed using the new Chat GPT tool. I thought it would be useful in making a start on a project I would like to conduct on administrative monetary penalties. I engaged in a chat with the tool, which clearly understood the core concepts, and, after some prodding, it generated a […] Read more
Join us next Tuesday on Zoom for the next in this year’s Administrative Law & Governance Colloquium, with Professors Liz Fisher and Sidney Shapiro, discussing their book, Administrative Competence: Reimagining Administrative Law (CUP, 2021): This book, by two of the world’s leading administrative law scholars, reimagines administrative law as the law of public administration by […] Read more
I am as guilty as any writer of referring to “an” administrative decision-maker, or “the Tribunal” or “the Regulator”. But, with apologies to Kenneth Shepsle, administrative agencies are a “they”, not an “it”. An administrative decision, be it an adjudicative decision or the adoption of a rule or policy, will typically be the product of […] Read more
The 2023 Administrative Law & Governance Colloquium 2023 gets underway next Tuesday, with Professor Margit Cohn, who will be discussing her important recent book, A Theory of the Executive Branch: Tension and Legality (OUP, 2021): The executive branch in Western democracies has been granted a virtually impossible task: expected to ‘imperially’ direct the life of […] Read more
From the Court of Appeal for England and Wales, here is an interesting recent judicial review decision about the effect of international agreements, and the role of the courts, in dualist legal systems: R. (Friends of the Earth) v. Secretary of State for International Trade, [2023] EWCA Civ 14. Here, Friends of the Earth sought […] Read more
In an earlier post, I introduced the duty of candour in judicial review proceedings, which has been recognized by courts across the common law world. This is to be distinguished from those duties of candour that apply in national security proceedings, to regulated professionals and in private law settings. In this and subsequent posts I […] Read more
Yesterday, for the first time, the UK Government used s. 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to prevent the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament from presenting a Bill for Royal Assent. The Bill in question is the Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill, which makes it easier to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate under Scots law, […] Read more