Commentary on developments in administrative law, particularly judicial review of administrative action by common law courts.
There are several recent English decisions on an interesting question: to what extent can courts adjudicating private law disputes look behind official credentials and determine whether diplomatic immunity applies? The basic issues are outlined well by Philippa Webb in this post on EJIL: Talk! In both cases, as Dr. Webb explains, several facts suggest that […] Read more
This year’s Common Law Conference at the University of Montreal is entitled Supreme Courts and the Common Law. The keynote address will be by Chief Justice McLachlin and there are speakers from every corner of the common law world. Find further details here. Registration is free. The proceedings, to be held in the state-of-the-art Cyberjustice […] Read more
Blogging has been slow recently, as you have doubtless noticed. We are coming up to the end of term here in Montreal, so the administrative load has been heavier than usual, and I have also completed a report for a government department on the functioning of an administrative agency (about which I will have much […] Read more
Even in the good old days when judicial review of administrative action was organized around readily identifiable poles such as “judicial” and “administrative” decisions, lawyers engaged in all manner of “verbal gymnastics” to contort their cases into a more favourable category (SA de Smith, Judicial Review of Administrative Action, 1st ed., 1961). In an administrative […] Read more
Before Christmas, I posted some thoughts on s. 96 of the Constitution Act, 1867 (see e.g. here and here). I have just finished revising my paper, which will appear in an edited collection about which I hope to say more soon. Here is the additional material I inserted in the last section, about how Canadian […] Read more
Here is the video from the event I wrote about. My witty introductory remarks unfortunately fell to the cutting room floor, but you can watch the substance of my presentation. Links to the other contributions are available on the L.R. Wilson website. Read more
Tomorrow I am speaking at the first in a series of conferences — En 2 mots / In 2 Words — organized by my colleague Vincent Gautrais. My topic is “Prescribing Surveillance by Law”. Here is the abstract I prepared: The common law of judicial review of administrative action has treated broad discretionary powers in […] Read more
There is a new decision from the Full Federal Court of Australia on whether and how statistical evidence can be used to demonstrate bias (in particular, prejudgement of relevant issues): ALA15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] FCAFC 30. Readers will recall that this question has also been raised in Canada (unsuccessfully) and […] Read more
In Creating the Administrative Constitution: The Lost One Hundred Years of American Administrative Law, Jerry Mashaw writes of how early in the life of the American republic courts occasionally formed part of the regulatory structure: While Congress left judicial review primarily to common law actions for damages, it provided for access to courts by statute […] Read more
Mindful that Canadian administrative law may be in for one of its periodic paradigm shifts, and of a talk entitled “The Analytical Structure of Reasonableness Review” that I gave to the law clerks of the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal last month, I thought it would be opportune to post some thoughts on […] Read more