Commentary on developments in administrative law, particularly judicial review of administrative action by common law courts.
When Benjamin Franklin was asked what sort of government the framers of the U.S. Constitution had created, he quipped: “A Republic, if you can keep it”. In Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, the Supreme Court of Canada reached something of a consensus. The question is: can the Court maintain […] Read more
Why is the Vavilov/Bell Canada/National Football League trilogy so important? In granting leave to appeal in the Bell Canada and Vavilov appeals, the Supreme Court of Canada expressed itself: …of the view that these appeals provide an opportunity to consider the nature and scope of judicial review of administrative action, as addressed in Dunsmuir v. […] Read more
Bushfires and volcanoes are raging in the Antipodes, the U.S. President is on the verge of impeachment, protesters in Hong Kong, India and Iran have taken to the streets, working-class retirees last week flocked to the polls in northern England to vote for MPs led by an Old Etonian. And now, standard of review has […] Read more
On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada will deliver its decisions in the long-awaited trilogy of cases heard last December: Vavilov v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) (Federal Court, 2015 FC 960; Federal Court of Appeal, 2017 FCA 132); Bell Canada v Canada (Attorney General) (Federal Court of Appeal, 2017 FCA 249); and National Football League […] Read more
The reading lists for the Administrative Law & Governance Colloquium 2020 have been finalized. You can find more information on the Colloquium here (which also has the course code CML 3351 for uOttawa students). The seminars are open to all and the reading lists are designed to help you, before or after the seminar, to […] Read more
A few months ago, Facebook published its Oversight Board Charter. Faced with mounting pressure about its treatment of complaints about its content moderation decisions, the company’s response was to create an Oversight Board: The purpose of the board is to protect free expression by making principled, independent decisions about important pieces of content and by […] Read more
The Supreme Court of Canada is releasing its eagerly awaited Administrative Law Trilogy next week, Thursday, December 19 at 9.45am EST: details here. I am going to host a free conference call for those interesting in sharing their thoughts (and hearing mine) on Thursday afternoon at 2pm EST. All are welcome to join. Here’s the […] Read more
This is the second post in a series. The first post can be found here. Even if we were to allow, for the sake of argument, that statutory provisions are always clear, discretion and judgement could not be eliminated from administrative decision-making. With respect to the administration of statutes – their implementation by front-line officials […] Read more
To mark the 60th anniversary of ANU Law and the 30th anniversary of the Centre for International and Public Law (CIPL), a major public law conference will be held at the Australian National University in Canberra, on 8-9 December 2020. Full details can be accessed here. Conference theme: Public Law and Inequality Growing inequality is a defining challenge of our times, domestically […] Read more
In their excellent book Reimagining Administrative Justice: Human Rights in Small Places (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019) (discussed here) Margaret Doyle and Nick O’Brien attack what they perceive as a neoliberal, individualistic turn in thinking about human rights and administrative justice. No quarter is given by the authors to those they consider responsible, one of whom is […] Read more