Vigilance and Restraint in the Common Law of Judicial Review

Author(s):  
Dean R. Knight
2011 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danwood Mzikenge Chirwa

AbstractThe 1994 Malawian Constitution is unique in that it, among other things, recognizes administrative justice as a fundamental right and articulates the notion of constitutional supremacy. This right and the idea of constitutional supremacy have important implications for Malawi's administrative law, which was hitherto based on the common law inherited from Britain. This article highlights the difficulties that Malawian courts have faced in reconciling the right to administrative justice as protected under the new constitution with the common law. In doing so, it offers some insights into what the constitutionalization of administrative justice means for Malawian administrative law. It is argued that the constitution has altered the basis and grounds for judicial review so fundamentally that the Malawian legal system's marriage to the English common law can be regarded as having irretrievably broken down as far as administrative law is concerned.


1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 551-564
Author(s):  
Dawn Oliver

First, I want to express my gratitude and sense of honour in being invited to deliver the Lionel Cohen lecture for 1995. The relationship between the Israeli and the British legal systems is a close and mutually beneficial one, and we in Britain in particular owe large debts to the legal community in Israel. This is especially the case in my field, public law, where distinguished academics have enriched our academic literature, notably Justice Zamir, whose work on the declaratory judgment has been so influential. Israeli courts, too, have made major contributions to the development of the common law generally and judicial review very notably.In this lecture I want to discuss the process of constitutional reform in the United Kingdom, and to explore some of the difficulties that lie in the way of reform. Some quite radical reforms to our system of government — the introduction of executive agencies in the British civil service, for instance—have been introduced without resort to legislation. There has been a spate of reform to local government and the National Health Service.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael L. Johnstone

West-Nordic Constitutional Judicial Review is based on Kári á Rógvi’s doctoral dissertation, defended in 2009 at the University of Iceland with the esteemed Eivind Smith and Guðmundur Alfreðsson as thesis opponents. It provides an excellent account of judicial review in the West-Nordic tradition (Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland) based on a selection of ‘leading cases, reminiscent of the common law approach to legal studies. As such, it is something of a novelty in the Nordic legal literature and a long overdue supplement to what Kári laments as the staid legal treatises that form the basis of Nordic legal educations (323-335).


Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi

This chapter examines the two models of judicial review that exist in the common law countries: the Diffuse Model and the Second Look Model. The Diffuse Model of judicial review originated in the United States and has spread to India, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, most of the countries of Latin America, the Scandinavian countries (except for the Netherlands), and Japan. It is premised on the idea that a country’s written constitution is its supreme law and that courts, when deciding cases or controversies that are properly before them, are thus duty-bound to follow the constitution, which is supreme law, and not a contrary statute whenever those two items conflict. Meanwhile, the essence of the Second Look Model of judicial review is that a Supreme or Constitutional Court ought to have the power of judicial review, subject to some kind of legislative power of override. This, it is said, best harmonizes the advantages of a written constitution and a bill of rights enforced by courts with the imperatives of democratic self-government. The underlying goal is to obtain the advantages of both constitutional government and also of democratic government.


Author(s):  
Paul Daly

This chapter analyses, from a comparative perspective, the law of judicial review of administrative action as it relates to factual error. The analyses is conducted in four common law jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, England and Wales, and Ireland), which have a ‘filial relationship’ as part of the common law tradition of controlling administrative action through the ordinary courts. The chapter outlines the traditional approach to judicial review of factual error in the four jurisdictions, characterized by limited judicial oversight of issues of fact. Next, the chapter describes the recent evolution in the law of judicial review of factual error. Although the evolutionary path has not led to the same destination in each jurisdiction, there has been increased judicial willingness to examine alleged factual errors in judicial review proceedings. However, the factors which have influenced the evolution of the law are different in each jurisdiction.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Camarena ◽  
Bradly J. Condon

Abstract The ‘new NAFTA’ agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States maintained the system for binational panel judicial review of antidumping and countervailing duty determinations of domestic government agencies. In US–Mexico disputes, this hybrid system brings together Spanish and English-speaking lawyers from the civil and the common law to solve legal disputes applying domestic law. These panels raise issues regarding potential bicultural, bilingual, and bijural (mis)understandings in legal reasoning. Do differences in language, legal traditions, and legal cultures limit the effectiveness of inter-systemic dispute resolution? We analyze all of the decisions of NAFTA panels in US–Mexico disputes regarding Mexican antidumping and countervailing duty determinations and the profiles of the corresponding panelists. This case study tests whether one can actually comprehend the ‘other’. To what extent can a common law, English-speaking lawyer understand and apply Mexican law, expressed in Spanish and rooted in a distinct legal culture?


Author(s):  
Timothy Endicott

Administrative Law explains the constitutional principles of the subject and their application across the range of twenty-first-century administrative law. The focus on constitutional principles is meant to bring some order to the very diverse topics with which you need to deal if you are to understand this very complex branch of public law. The common law courts, government agencies, and Parliament have developed a wide variety of techniques for controlling the enormously diverse activities of twenty-first-century government. Underlying all that variety is a set of constitutional principles. This book uses the law of judicial review to identify and to explain these principles, and then shows how they ought to be worked out in the private law of tort and contract, in the tribunals system, and in non-judicial techniques such as investigations by ombudsmen, auditors, and other government agencies. The aim is to equip the reader to take a principled approach to the controversial problems of administrative law.


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