Understanding Administrative Law in the Common Law World

by Paul Daly

Around the common law world, the law of judicial review of administrative action has changed dramatically in recent decades, accelerating a centuries-long process of incremental evolution. This book offers a fresh framework for understanding the core features of contemporary administrative law. Through comparative analysis of case law from Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, and New Zealand, the author develops an interpretive approach by reference to four individual self-realisation, good administration, electoral legitimacy, and decisional autonomy. The interaction of this plurality of values explains the structure of the vast field of judicial review of administrative institutional structures, procedural fairness, substantive review, remedies, restrictions on remedies, and the scope of judicial review. Addressing this wide array of subjects in detail, the book demonstrates how a pluralist approach, with the values being employed in a complementary and balanced
fashion, can enhance our understanding of administrative law. Furthermore, such an approach can guide the future development of the law of judicial review of administrative action, a point illustrated by a careful analysis of the unsettled doctrinal area of legitimate expectation. The book closes by arguing that the author's values-based, pluralist framework supports the legitimacy of contemporary administrative law which, although sometimes called into question, facilitates the flourishing of individuals, of public administration, and of the liberal democratic system.

320 pages, Hardcover

Published October 25, 2021

Reviews

[Sancho]

Thesis: doctrines of admin law can and should be explained through the values of individual self-realisation, good administration, electoral legitimacy, and decisional autonomy. I especially liked the application of the theory to the jurisprudence on remedies and the scope of judicial review. This book also provides a nice survey of admin law from around the commonwealth.