delegation
Two ‘Carltona’ Cases: W.T. v. Minister for Justice, [2015] IESC 73; R. (Bourgass) v. Secretary of State for Justice, [2015] UKSC 54
As has often been said by administrative lawyers waiting at bus-stops, you wait ages for a major case on the exercise of ministerial powers by subordinates and then two come along at once. There is an excellent review of the general principles in MacMenamin J.’s judgment for the Irish Supreme Court in W.T. v. Minister […] Read more
Delegation, Drugs and Republicanism: Bederev v. Ireland, [2015] IECA 38
Ireland now has a Court of Appeal. If some of its citizens were unaware of its existence, the buzz that followed Bederev v. Ireland, [2015] IECA 38 put paid to any lack of public awareness. In a set of reasons by Hogan J., the Court held that s. 2(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act […] Read more
Libertarian Administrative Law
Adrian Vermeule and Cass Sunstein have an intriguing new paper on Libertarian Administrative Law: In recent years, several judges on the nation’s most important regulatory court — the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — have given birth to libertarian administrative law, in the form of a series of judge-made […] Read more
Henry VIII Down Under
There are limits to what courts can do to thwart legislative enactments of Henry VIII clauses, which grant powers to the executive to modify legislation. Typically, Henry VIII clauses are included in legislation for limited periods of time, to facilitate the implementation of the statutory provisions. Much of what governs modern life is not produced […] Read more
A Theoretical Book but a Practical Approach
Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to blog occasionally about my new book, A Theory of Deference in Administrative Law:Basis, Application and Scope. For my first post, I thought I would start with something that does not really appear in the book at all: a brief overview of the approach I urge. […] Read more
Delegation of Law-Making Power to Private Entities
Last week the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia upheld against constitutional challenge a delegation of power to Amtrak to develop performance standards. One of the grounds on which the challengers in Association of American Railroads v. Department of Transportation relied was that Amtrak was a private entity. American constitutional law doctrine looks […] Read more