Commentary on developments in administrative law, particularly judicial review of administrative action by common law courts.
It is often said that administrative bodies have no inherent jurisdiction, only those powers granted by the legislature.[1] According to the majority of the Supreme Court of Canada, per Bastarache J. in the ATCO case, those powers have “two sources”: “(1) express grant by statute (express power) and (2) common law, under the doctrine of […] Read more
My new paper on fundamental rights in public administration will appear in the next issue of the Canadian Bar Review. “The Doré Duty: Fundamental Rights in Public Administration” is now available on SSRN: In this paper I consider an important and heretofore understudied aspect of the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2012 decision in Doré v […] Read more
Policy Options is running a series — Lessons from the Rouleau Commission — prompted by the report of the Rouleau Commission into the invocation of the Emergencies Act in February 2022. My contribution, entitled “Legal tussling over the Emergencies Act is far from over”, can be found here. Here are the introductory paragraphs: The honking […] Read more
I have a short paper coming out soon in the Governance Review, entitled “Mapping Artificial Intelligence Use in the Government of Canada“. In particular, I offer a typology of use cases for AI systems and some critical observations on some of the uses. Here is the abstract: On the one hand, technological advances and their […] Read more
Two pieces of proposed legislation are currently winding their way through Parliament, one about judicial discipline, one about compensation for air travel passengers. As drafted, both bills prompt serious questions about judicial oversight and open justice. Judicial Oversight Several judicial discipline cases in recent times have become bogged down in lengthy litigation, paid for out […] Read more
In a new paper to be published in the Australian Journal of Administrative Law & Practice, entitled “Artificial Administration: Administrative Law, Administrative Justice and Accountability in the Age of Machines“, I bring together much of my previous scholarship on the topic of automation in public administration. In Parts II and III of the paper, I […] Read more
The subject of this year’s Administrative Law & Governance Colloquium was “The Legitimacy of the State“. Over a period of several weeks, I welcomed Margit Cohn (the executive branch), Liz Fisher and Sid Shapiro (administrative agencies), Joseph Heath (the civil service), Robert Thomas (immigration administration) and Peter Conti-Brown (central banks). Below you will find links […] Read more
This short review will appear in the next issue of the Canadian Journal of Administrative Law & Practice John Mark Keyes, Executive Legislation, Third Edition, LexisNexis Canada, Markham, 2021, Hardcover $235.00, 726pp ISBN: 9780433499275 Relatively authors succeed in making substantial conceptual and practical contributions to the legal literature. John Mark Keyes’s Executive Legislation, now in […] Read more
Pandemic restrictions meant that when Understanding Administrative Law in the Common Law World rolled off the printing presses in 2021, the launch events took place online. I’m happy to say that the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa has organized an in-person gathering for next week, in the University’s state-of-the-art Social Sciences Building […] Read more
In a new paper to be published in the Australian Journal of Administrative Law & Practice, entitled “Artificial Administration: Administrative Law, Administrative Justice and Accountability in the Age of Machines“, I bring together much of my previous scholarship on the topic of automation in public administration. Here is an extract about how automation, including artificial […] Read more