Britain is currently in the throes of a general election in which, an unkind Transatlantic observer might say, the question for many voters is ‘who is the evil of two lessers?’ It is quite likely, indeed almost certain, that Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn will be occupying 10 Downing Street come January 1, 2020, notwithstanding […] Read more

In Reimagining Administrative Justice: Human Rights in Small Places (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019) Margaret Doyle and Nick O’Brien have made a wonderful contribution to the public law literature. By turns playful, polemical and provocative, the authors set out to challenge much of the received contemporary wisdom about administrative justice. Their motive is to fight back against […] Read more

I have posted my “year in review” paper to SSRN. The title is “Waiting for Godot: Canadian Administrative Law in 2019“. Here is the abstract: The first half of my “year in review” paper covers the Supreme Court’s much-anticipated trilogy of decisions on the standard of review of administrative action (Part I); some of the […] Read more

I will be giving the inaugural lecture for my University Research Chair in Administrative Law & Governance at the University of Ottawa on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 5pm (FTX302, 57 Louis Pasteur Private, Ottawa K1N 6N5). The title is “Plural Public Law”, The Right Honourable Richard Wagner, Chief Justice of Canada, will introduce the […] Read more

I have posted “Artificial Administration: Administrative Law in the Age of Machines” to SSRN. Here is the abstract: We live in the era of Big Data and we are now entering the world of artificial administration, where governmental bodies will replace or displace human decision-makers with information technology. A clash of value systems is or […] Read more

Last month I gave a talk at the Journal of Commonwealth Law’s symposium on Human Rights in Administrative Agencies at the Université de Montréal, entitled “The Inevitability of Administrative Discretion and What it Should Mean for Human Rights”. Here’s the abstract: Given the vagaries of language and life there is no such thing as “clear” […] Read more

I am hitting the road next week for two events on Canadian administrative law. First, I am very happy to be speaking with Stratas JA at the OBA’s Annual Update on Judicial Review in Toronto next Tuesday (November 26). Having participated via videolink in recent years, into the early hours of the morning in the […] Read more

The unusual background to Crowder v. British Columbia (Attorney General)[1] related to a change to the province’s Supreme Court Rules[2]designed to reduce the cost of litigation in road traffic accident cases by limiting to three the number of expert reports which could be tendered in evidence and be the subject of disbursements. Under s. 1 […] Read more

The constitutional status of tribunal independence was squarely in issue in Walter v. British Columbia.[1] Controversy arose about the remuneration of the Chairperson of the British Columbia Review Board. Each Canadian province has a Review Board to make or review dispositions in respect of accused persons found Not Criminally Responsible by reason of Mental Disorder, […] Read more

There are many available definitions of administrative justice, a term which “has, until recently, been shrouded in obscurity”[1] and provoked “considerable disagreement”.[2] On the one hand, the term can be used to denote “the justice inherent in decision making”,[3] or “those qualities of decision making process that provide arguments for the acceptability of its decisions”.[4] […] Read more