In his plenary paper at the Public Law Conference, Mark Aronson discussed the growth of substantive review in Australia, a phenomenon that can be glimpsed in most common-law jurisdictions. Mark gave three reasons for growth: 1. The rise of reasons (as a requirement imposed by statute or common law, or, I would add, self-imposed for […] Read more

Canada distinguishes between public law and private law. Judicial review of administrative action is kept separate from the law of tort, contract, property and equity. In an important 2010 decision (Canada (Attorney General) v. TeleZone Inc., [2010] 3 SCR 585, 2010 SCC 62), the Supreme Court of Canada signaled that the importance of the distinction […] Read more

I have been known to complain about courts and administrators supplementing the administrative record after a decision has been made. In a case last year, a Canadian appellate court deferred to an interpretation of law offered in an affidavit. I was reminded at the Public Law Conference that the use of affidavits to bolster the […] Read more

One of the panels at the inaugural Public Law Conference last week (see my previous post) was on legitimate expectations. I was keenly interested, as I have agreed to contribute a chapter to a forthcoming (early 2016) collection on legitimate expectations in the common law world. Cora Hoexter was sympathetic to legitimate expectations as she […] Read more

How should we describe what administrative decision-makers do when they interpret statutory provisions? In my view, they are making/interpreting/doing “law”, even if it is infused with policy considerations in a way that the judicial function is (arguably) not. Does it follow that they should perform this “law” function in the same way that courts do? […] Read more

Last week I presented my paper “Administrative Law: a Values-Based Approach” at the inaugural Public Law Conference at the University of Cambridge. I hope to have a few posts on the conference, focusing on panels that I attended. But I will start with a post on my own paper. By way of general comment, I […] Read more

Light blogging this week as I have just arrived in Cambridge for the inaugural Public Law Conference. You can download my paper on administrative law values here. I hope to have a round-up when I return!   UPDATE: the links are not working, so here they are in turn: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2460264 http://www.publiclawconference.law.cam.ac.uk   Read more

Here is a technical problem, discussed in Yellow Cab Company Ltd. v. Passenger Transportation Board, 2014 BCCA 329. When a decision-maker reconsiders, or refuses to reconsider a decision, what is the significance of the original decision for a judicial review application? As a general rule: [40]        Where a party has taken advantage of […] Read more

I posted recently about Canada’s new anti-spam law, mentioning the challenges that the CRTC would face in implementing it. The CRTC has established a complaints mechanism which can be accessed via its website.  Have a look here. It is proving popular: more than 1,000 complaints were received in the first week. By the end of […] Read more

This is the last extract from my forthcoming article, “Canada’s Bi-Polar Administrative Law: Time for Fusion“. I detail how procedural and substantive review might be fused and, in particular, why traditionalists should not flinch. Download the paper here.   It is now necessary to consider how the two poles might be fused. One possibility is […] Read more