Commentary on developments in administrative law, particularly judicial review of administrative action by common law courts.
Every year from 2020 I will be organizing an Administrative Law & Governance Colloquium (funded by the University Research Chair in Administrative Law & Governance) at the University of Ottawa. Students can take the Colloquium for credit (more details below). Here is the schedule for 2020: Professor Gillian Metzger, Stanley H. Fuld Professor of Law, […] Read more
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
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
As regular readers know, the Supreme Court of Canada reserved judgment in its administrative law ‘trilogy‘ last December. The Court normally delivers its decisions within about six months but sometimes, as with the trilogy, takes longer. While we are waiting, I thought it might be useful to flag two recent papers which have appeared in […] Read more
Last month the Quebec Court of Appeal handed down its opinion in the Renvoi à la Cour d’appel du Québec portant sur la validité constitutionnelle des dispositions de l’article 35 du Code de procédure civile qui fixent à moins de 85 000 $ la compétence pécuniaire exclusive de la Cour du Québec et sur la […] Read more
In two important recent decisions, Canadian courts have had to consider the lawfulness of internal administrative arrangements designed to promote consistent decision-making. On both occasions, the arrangements ran afoul of the principles of administrative law. In Shuttleworth v. Ontario (Safety, Licensing Appeals and Standards Tribunals), 2019 ONCA 518 a process of peer review of draft […] Read more
I’m grateful to Radio Canada and the hosts of the Stereo Decisis podcast for giving me the opportunity to speak about the Case of Prorogations [2019] UKSC 41 this week. As it happens the decision was handed down on my birthday, which was quite the present. I’ve embedded the Stereo Decisis discussion here: And here […] Read more
Brexit provided more grist for the public law mill this morning with the UK Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in R (Miller) v Prime Minister [2019] UKSC 41. In a judgment written by Lady Hale and Lord Reed, the Court held, first, that Prime Minister Johnson’s advice to prorogue Parliament was unlawful and, second, that the […] Read more
When I lectured administrative law at the University of Cambridge, I received one question from the floor in three years. (Students have fortnightly small-group supervisions, so tend to save their inquiries for their supervisors.) I regularly asked the students if they had any questions and sometimes jokingly complained that they were too shy. This machismo […] Read more
One of the issues which recurred in the UK Supreme Court’s hearing of the prorogation litigation this week (see my posts here, here and here) was whether the grounds of review applied to exercises of statutory powers are equally applicable to prerogative powers. The Court’s previous decision in R (Sandiford) v Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary […] Read more