Commentary on developments in administrative law, particularly judicial review of administrative action by common law courts.
For the first time in most of our lives, we are living through a pandemic. Across the world, legislatures will be forced or tempted to pass emergency legislation to put in place measures to stop and reverse the spread of Covid-19. In this post, I collect a few notes on Emergency Legislation, based on a […] Read more
I gave my inaugural lecture as the University Research Chair in Administrative Law at the University of Ottawa last week. You can watch the lecture here (after some introductory remarks from Dean Sylvestre, Chief Justice Wagner and Justice Bich). The comments from my respondents, Justice Stratas and Professor Cartier can be found here. I posted […] Read more
On Monday, the Administrative Law & Governance Colloquium features Sarah Nason (Bangor Law School), on the topic of “Interpretation”. Due to her institution’s Coronavirus policy, Dr Nason is unable to travel to Ottawa as planned. But she will be presenting via videoconference. And every cloud has a silver lining: this means that Dr Nason’s presentation […] Read more
On Monday, the Administrative Law & Governance Colloquium features Matthew Lewans from the University of Alberta, on the topic of “Deference” (Monday March 9, FTX 137, 17:00 to 19:00). As ever, all are welcome to attend. Prof Lewans will be discussing in particular his monograph, Administrative Law and Judicial Deference (Hart Publishing, 2016): In recent […] Read more
Just a brief note to alert readers who are not in Ottawa that tomorrow’s inaugural lecture event will be livestreamed on Twitter from 17.00 EST, at this link, featuring an introduction by Wagner CJ and comments by Professor Cartier and Stratas JA after my talk, with Bich JA moderating. Read more
From the High Court of Australia, a fascinating case on bias, resulting in a narrow 3-2 win for an immigrant who had been refused a protection visa: CNY17 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2019] HCA 50. The split on the Court illustrates how difficult applying the rule against bias can be and, in […] Read more
My inaugural lecture as the University Research Chair in Administrative Law & Governance takes place on Wednesday evening, 5pm (register here). Here is the introductory section of the lecture. The rest will follow on Wednesday evening... We live in a world of increasing complexity, submerged by tidal waves of statutes, delegated legislation, soft law, judicial […] Read more
On the reading list for this week’s installment of the Administrative Law & Governance colloquium was Jeffrey A Pojanowski’s article, “Neoclassical Administrative Law“. Here is the abstract: This Article introduces an approach to administrative law that reconciles a more formalist, classical understanding of law and its supremacy with the contemporary administrative state. Courts adopting this […] Read more
I’ve been reading and listening closely (or, at least, as closely as time will allow) to the post-Vavilov output of Canadian courts and commentators. I have been struck by a number of things. First, some people are very confident that they are absolutely sure what the effects of Vavilov will be. For my part, although […] Read more
The first of this year’s Administrative Law & Governance Colloquium kicks off next week with Professor Gillian Metzger (Columbia) on the topic of “Legitimacy”: Monday February 24, FTX 137 (First floor, Fauteux Hall, 57 Louis Pasteur, K1N 6N5), 17:00 to 19:00. All are welcome to attend — there will even be pizza. Discussion will turn […] Read more