I have uploaded a pre-proof version of the first chapter of A Culture of Justification: Vavilov and the Future of Administrative Law to SSRN: “Why is Administrative Law So Complicated?” Here is an extract: Three concepts have been of central importance to Canadian administrative law in recent decades. One of them – jurisdiction – is […] Read more

As is well known, administrative tribunals enjoy no constitutional status in Canada and benefit from no entrenched protection for independence. In McAnsh v. Ontario, 2023 ONSC 3537, the representative plaintiff sought to present a novel administrative independence claim in contract (Disclosure: I aided counsel for the representative plaintiff in this case though I had no […] Read more

It is settled law that discretionary powers must be exercised for proper purposes and by taking into account relevant considerations. A pair of recent decisions from the High Court of Australia illustrate this settled law quite nicely: Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs v Thornton [2023] HCA 17; and ENT19 v Minister […] Read more

I have uploaded a pre-proof version of the first chapter of A Culture of Justification: Vavilov and the Future of Administrative Law to SSRN: “Why is Administrative Law So Complicated?” Here is an extract: All Canadians are affected by the administrative state in all sorts of ways: when they return from abroad; apply for a […] Read more

In a recent post I described the concept of procedural duties in administrative law. The UK Supreme Court recently delivered an important decision on the scope of procedural duties: R (Marouf) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, [2023] UKSC 23. The particular question addressed by the Supreme Court was whether the duty has […] Read more

This is the final excerpt from my forthcoming article “The Doré Duty: Fundamental Rights in Public Administration“, to appear shortly in the Canadian Bar Review. The Doré duty is a procedural duty. It makes Charter values a mandatory consideration in cases to which the duty applies. Failure to take relevant Charter values into account before […] Read more

It is well established in Westminster systems, such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, that civil servants may exercise the statutory powers of a minister: this is the Carltona principle. But the Carltona principle can be displaced by statutory language prescribing that the minister must exercise the statutory power personally. Where a ministerial statutory […] Read more

In a previous post I described the procedural flexibility of administrative tribunals (having, before that, outlined the variety of functions administrative tribunals can play). In this post I describe the structural variability of administrative tribunals. The starting point is that each administrative tribunal is a discrete statutory creation, with its own legislative mandate and suite […] Read more

In an ill-fated police operation in 2015, Officer W80 shot Jermaine Baker dead. Baker was suspected of involvement in a plot to free an accused from police custody. At the time of the police operation, Baker and two other men were in a parked car, with fogged-up windows, when the vehicle was approached by W80 […] Read more

It has been said that administrative tribunals are like Cleopatra: age cannot wither them, nor stale their infinite variety.[1] This is certainly true of Canada. A variety of adjudicative bodies can be grouped under the heading of administrative tribunals, their procedures and structures vary significantly from province to province, and the regimes for appointment and […] Read more