2019

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Human Rights in Administrative Decision-Making I: Discretion and Judgement in Statutory Interpretation

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

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Administrative Tribunals and Constitutional Independence: Walter v BC 2019 BCCA 221

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

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Thinking about Administrative Justice: the Power of Mashaw’s Models

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

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Unreasonable Interpretations of Law Redux: Mason v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 1251

I posted earlier this year about divergent approaches on Canadian courts of appeal to the application of the deferential standard of reasonableness to administrative interpretations of law. There was, on the one hand, the aggressive use by the British Columbia Court of Appeal of the principles of statutory interpretation to determine the best possible reading […] Read more

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Some Forthcoming Publications: A Comparative Study of Factual Error; Ireland’s Administrative State; and Materiality in Judicial Review

I should flag for readers three papers which I’ve recently uploaded to SSRN, a collection ranging from a comparative study of judicial review of factual error, through a critique of Irish judicial attitudes to the administrative state to an analysis of materiality in judicial review of administrative action. First, my contribution to the Oxford Handbook […] Read more