2013

From Blogger

Appealing to the Right Place

The Québec Court of Appeal issued an important decision recently, clarifying the appropriate avenues for appeals of (some) administrative decisions: Lebel c. Kanafani, 2013 QCCA 200.At issue here was a complaint against a real estate agent, which was rejected at first instance by the appropriate regulatory body. The applicant then sought leave to appeal to […] Read more

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A Fresh Start on the UK Supreme Court?

There is little to add to Dr. Mark Elliott’s excellent post on today’s UKSC decision in Jones v. First Tier Tribunal, [2013] UKSC 19. As Mark notes in his comprehensive and thoughtful entry, Lord Carnwath was refreshingly honest about the role that the distinction between law and fact plays in allowing judges to allocate decision-making […] Read more

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The “Rogers Exception”: Some Recent Canadian Standard of Review Decisions

In my essay on deference and the copyright cases, I suggested that an innovation the Supreme Court of Canada made in Rogers Communications Inc. v. Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, 2012 SCC 35 would bedevil lower courts. Briefly, the exception suggests that where there is co-ordinate jurisdiction between courts and administrative decision-makers […] Read more

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Deference on the SCOTUS

Much of the focus on the Supreme Court of the United States recently has been on the hot-button topic of same-sex marriage. But the Court has also released some interesting administrative law decisions in recent weeks. The End of Auer Deference: Administrative Interpretations of Regulations I previously posted some sceptical thoughts on the continuing applicability […] Read more

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Deference and Reasonableness

In Canada, it is gradually becoming clear that the Supreme Court wants reviewing courts to presume that the standard of review of administrative action is reasonableness. The Court has not been perfectly clear about its intentions, however, so there are still pockets of resistance (see my articles here and here for discussion). As I suggest […] Read more

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The Enlightenment of Administrative Law: Looking Inside the Agency for Legitimacy

In Sidney Shapiro, Elizabeth Fisher and Wendy Wagner’s fascinating article, they contrast the “rational-instrumental” model of administrative decision-making, which they describe as dominant, with the “deliberative-constitutive” model, which they prefer. If you are interested in the legitimacy of the administrative state, the article is a must-read. Under the former model, “agency accountability is ensured by […] Read more