Judicial Review of Administrative Action Across the Common Law World

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Daly

This chapter analyses, from a comparative perspective, the law of judicial review of administrative action as it relates to factual error. The analyses is conducted in four common law jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, England and Wales, and Ireland), which have a ‘filial relationship’ as part of the common law tradition of controlling administrative action through the ordinary courts. The chapter outlines the traditional approach to judicial review of factual error in the four jurisdictions, characterized by limited judicial oversight of issues of fact. Next, the chapter describes the recent evolution in the law of judicial review of factual error. Although the evolutionary path has not led to the same destination in each jurisdiction, there has been increased judicial willingness to examine alleged factual errors in judicial review proceedings. However, the factors which have influenced the evolution of the law are different in each jurisdiction.


Author(s):  
Paul Daly

This book has three goals: to enhance understanding of administrative law; to guide future development of the law; and to justify the core features of the contemporary law of judicial review of administrative action. Around the common law world, the law of judicial review of administrative action has changed dramatically in recent decades, accelerating a centuries-long process of incremental evolution. This book offers a fresh framework for understanding the core features of contemporary administrative law. Through comparative analysis of case law from Australia, Canada, England, Ireland and New Zealand, Dr Daly develops an interpretive approach by reference to four values: individual self-realisation, good administration, electoral legitimacy and decisional autonomy. The interaction of this plurality of values explains the structure of the vast field of judicial review of administrative action: institutional structures, procedural fairness, substantive review, remedies, restrictions on remedies and the scope of judicial review, everything from the rule against bias to jurisdictional error to the application of judicial review principles to non-statutory bodies. Addressing this wide array of subjects in detail, Dr Daly demonstrates how his pluralist approach, with the values being employed in a complementary and balanced fashion, can enhance academics’, students’, practitioners’ and judges’ understanding of administrative law. Furthermore, this pluralist approach is capable of guiding the future development of the law of judicial review of administrative action, a point illustrated by a careful analysis of the unsettled doctrinal area of legitimate expectation. Dr Daly closes by arguing that his values-based, pluralist framework supports the legitimacy of contemporary administrative law which although sometimes called into question in fact facilitates the flourishing of individuals, of public administration and of the liberal democratic system.


1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Griffiths

Over the last three years the Commonwealth has enacted four statutes with the aim of overcoming some of the deficiencies which exist at common law in the reviewing of administrative action. These are the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (Cth), the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Amendment Act 1977 (Cth), the Ombudsman Act 1976 (Cth) and the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth). This article examines in detail the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth) in order to determine whether the common law rights and remedies have been improved.


2011 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danwood Mzikenge Chirwa

AbstractThe 1994 Malawian Constitution is unique in that it, among other things, recognizes administrative justice as a fundamental right and articulates the notion of constitutional supremacy. This right and the idea of constitutional supremacy have important implications for Malawi's administrative law, which was hitherto based on the common law inherited from Britain. This article highlights the difficulties that Malawian courts have faced in reconciling the right to administrative justice as protected under the new constitution with the common law. In doing so, it offers some insights into what the constitutionalization of administrative justice means for Malawian administrative law. It is argued that the constitution has altered the basis and grounds for judicial review so fundamentally that the Malawian legal system's marriage to the English common law can be regarded as having irretrievably broken down as far as administrative law is concerned.


1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 551-564
Author(s):  
Dawn Oliver

First, I want to express my gratitude and sense of honour in being invited to deliver the Lionel Cohen lecture for 1995. The relationship between the Israeli and the British legal systems is a close and mutually beneficial one, and we in Britain in particular owe large debts to the legal community in Israel. This is especially the case in my field, public law, where distinguished academics have enriched our academic literature, notably Justice Zamir, whose work on the declaratory judgment has been so influential. Israeli courts, too, have made major contributions to the development of the common law generally and judicial review very notably.In this lecture I want to discuss the process of constitutional reform in the United Kingdom, and to explore some of the difficulties that lie in the way of reform. Some quite radical reforms to our system of government — the introduction of executive agencies in the British civil service, for instance—have been introduced without resort to legislation. There has been a spate of reform to local government and the National Health Service.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael L. Johnstone

West-Nordic Constitutional Judicial Review is based on Kári á Rógvi’s doctoral dissertation, defended in 2009 at the University of Iceland with the esteemed Eivind Smith and Guðmundur Alfreðsson as thesis opponents. It provides an excellent account of judicial review in the West-Nordic tradition (Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland) based on a selection of ‘leading cases, reminiscent of the common law approach to legal studies. As such, it is something of a novelty in the Nordic legal literature and a long overdue supplement to what Kári laments as the staid legal treatises that form the basis of Nordic legal educations (323-335).


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