Commentary on developments in administrative law, particularly judicial review of administrative action by common law courts.
Regular readers will be aware that the standard of review of regulations has been a contentious point in Canadian public law for some time now (see e.g. here). Next week, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear the appeals from the decisions of the Alberta Court of Appeal in Auer v Auer, 2022 ABCA 375 […] Read more
As I have mentioned in a couple of posts, I have agreed to take the baton from the great David Mullan in providing readers of the Energy Regulation Quarterly with an annual review of administrative law. The text has now been published and can be accessed here in web format and also in PDF. I […] Read more
This year’s Administrative Law and Governance Colloquium on “Executive Power” has drawn to an end. Here are the recordings of each session. Robert Craig (Bristol) on “Crown Powers”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq-2t0fI7kM Peter Shane (NYU) on “Presidential Powers”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwhukpXcuWQ Philippe Lagassé (Carleton) on “Prerogative Powers”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkmbEjsCe-Q Ariane Vidal-Naquet (Marseille) on “Executive Responsibility in Comparative Perspective”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Z3rU0Ny2s Thanks […] Read more
Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 is closing in on 10,000 mentions in subsequent cases. After five-or-so years the basic concepts have been very well explained and are widely understood. Nonetheless, every now and then I come across a passage that is particularly evocative. The following contribution by […] Read more
On Wednesday of this week, Professor Ariane Vidal-Naquet will be joining me on the Administrative Law & Governance Colloquium. Professor Vidal-Naquet will be discussing her contribution to Comparative Executive Power in Europe: Perspectives on Accountability from Law, History and Political Science (Routledge, 2023). Her deep knowledge of executive power in Europe will complement the previous […] Read more
On Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its much-anticipated decision in Yatar v TD Insurance Meloche Monnex, 2024 SCC 8. As expected (by me at any rate), the Court reversed the approach below and (correctly, in my view) described the role of discretion in judicial review proceedings. In reasons written by Rowe J, […] Read more
Tomorrow, Professor Philippe Lagassé (Carleton) will be joining me on the Administrative Law & Governance Colloquium, on the subject of prerogative powers. Professor Lagassé will be discussing a draft manuscript based on research done under a large grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He will offer some arresting conclusions about similarities in […] Read more
For the opening post in this series, see here. Constitutional traditionalists take a broad view of Crevier and a narrow view of legislative intent. For members of this camp, judicial review for substantive reasonableness and procedural fairness must always be available, on issues of law and issues of fact alike. The only situation in which […] Read more
For the opening post in this series, see here. Those in the discretion camp do not take sides as between legislative intentionalists and constitutional traditionalists. Rather, they would use the remedial discretion of the superior courts to refuse to grant a remedy for factual error in most cases. In that way, respect can be paid […] Read more
For the opening post in this series, see here. The legislative intentionalists take a narrow view of Crevier and a broad view of institutional design. In their view, judicial respect for legislative intent demands that partial restrictions on judicial review (such as appeals limited to questions of law or jurisdiction) be given effect, as long […] Read more