Administrative Law Matters

Commentary on developments in administrative law, particularly judicial review of administrative action by common law courts.

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Nothing Really Matters? Andrew Green on Judicial Reforms to Administrative Law

I should flag a very fun/interesting/depressing paper by Professor Andrew Green (University of Toronto), “How Important are the Groundbreaking Cases in Administrative Law?“: The story of Canadian administrative law could seen as a move towards deference driven by some fundamental decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. Debates about this move centre around the proper […] Read more

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Relevant Considerations, Proper Purposes and Ministerial Discretion: Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs v Thornton [2023] HCA 17 and ENT19 v Minister for Home Affairs [2023] HCA 18

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

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Extraterritoriality and the Procedural Duties of Administrative Decision-makers: R (Marouf) v Home Secretary, [2023] UKSC 23

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

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Discharging the Doré Duty

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

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Personal Ministerial Powers, Delegation and Soft Law: Davis v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs; DCM20 v Secretary of Department of Home Affairs [2023] HCA 10

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

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Administrative Tribunals: Structural Variability

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