Pandemic restrictions meant that when Understanding Administrative Law in the Common Law World rolled off the printing presses in 2021, the launch events took place online. I’m happy to say that the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa has organized an in-person gathering for next week, in the University’s state-of-the-art Social Sciences Building […] Read more

In a new paper to be published in the Australian Journal of Administrative Law & Practice, entitled “Artificial Administration: Administrative Law, Administrative Justice and Accountability in the Age of Machines“, I bring together much of my previous scholarship on the topic of automation in public administration. Here is an extract about how automation, including artificial […] Read more

I have not been very assiduous about updating your email subscriptions and accommodating RSS feeds since Google discontinued Feedburner. I have now identified Feedpress as a suitable replacement. Those of you who are receiving an email for the first time in quite a while should feel free to hit “unsubscribe”. Clicking the RSS feed icon […] Read more

I was puzzled by the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision to grant leave to appeal from the Ontario Court of Appeal in Ontario (Attorney General) v. Ontario (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2022 ONCA 74. Admittedly, this is a high-profile case, as it involved a decision by the Commissioner that mandate letters issued by the Premier […] Read more

I have written a paper entitled, “How Binding are Binding Guidelines? An Analytical Framework” to be published later this year in Canadian Public Administration. You can access a pre-publication version here. In this post, I discuss two features that, although they are regularly mentioned in the case law, are not actually indicative of bindingness. Two […] Read more

Next week, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear the appeal from Association des cadres de la Société des casinos du Québec c. Société des casinos du Québec, 2022 QCCA 180. This case sits at the intersection of constitutional law and administrative law. It poses interesting questions about the standard of review for factually infused […] Read more

In previous posts, I introduced the duty of candour in judicial review proceedings (here), explained the limited content of the record for judicial review purposes in Canada (here and here) and critically analyzed the current state of the law (here). In this post, I discuss some solutions for the limited record problem: taking a muscular […] Read more

I have written a paper entitled, “How Binding are Binding Guidelines? An Analytical Framework” to be published later this year in Canadian Public Administration. You can access a pre-publication version here. In this post, I discuss how intended effects on third parties are an indicium of bindingness. The extent to which a guideline is drafted […] Read more

No sooner had I started to play around with Chat GPT-4 to write administrative decisions than the Federal Court issued a decision on the use of AI in the administrative decision-making process. In Haghshenas v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 464, Brown J considered whether using an AI system (Chinook) in writing a decision […] Read more

I asked Chat GPT4 to help me write an administrative decision refusing a student visa application. Sure, here’s an example of how you could structure an administrative decision regarding a student visa application: [Date] [Applicant Name] [Address] [City, Province/State] [Country] [Postal Code] Dear [Applicant Name], Re: [File Number] I am writing to inform you of […] Read more