scholarly journals THE STANDARD THEORY OF ADMINISTRATIVE UNLAWFULNESS

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-310
Author(s):  
Thomas Adams

AbstractAccording to the standard theory of administrative unlawfulness an act that is public law unlawful is, for that reason, invalid and of no effect in law. In this article I suggest that the theory ought to be rejected. I begin by outlining the standard theory as well as noting its endorsement by the Supreme Court in the case of Ahmed (no. 2). Having in the main part of the paper criticised the theory, I move to lay out an alternative: that unlawfulness signals not the invalidity of an administrative act but a duty on the part of the court to invalidate it. Noting that the alternative rests upon what appears to be a paradox – that unlawful administrative action may nonetheless have legal effect – I try to show why it is more apparent than real. Finally, I return to the decision in Ahmed (no. 2).

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 299-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Cross ◽  
Christopher Knight

Author(s):  
Yseult Marique

Analysing the administrative case law of the Belgian Supreme Court between 1890 and 1910, this chapter shows that the Supreme Court applied the main features of a positivist legal thought (based on the assumption of clarity, coherence, and completeness of the formal law) to administrative action and its legality. It equipped the central and local institutions of the State with functioning powers, allowing an operational state to develop despite social unrest. As the social and technological context changed at the end of the nineteenth century, the statute book became more confused, however. This gave the Supreme Court ample room to interpret the law creatively and pragmatically. The ‘administrative miracle’ in Belgium is that the Supreme Court did not shackle social forces and unbridle the administration so much that the very course it wanted to avert actually happened. This may be down to the creative judicial genius that the Belgian judiciary developed a formal approach whilst deciding pragmatically on the substance of cases.


1978 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude Klein

In his case note on the famous Bergmann decision of the Supreme Court, Professor Akzin wrote: While the Court's conclusions seem to be perfectly justified and went so far as they could in the circumstances, the reasoning in its decision shows serious flaws… [others] seem to have sprung from the Court's unwillingness to look for help to the very thorough discussion of the issues by several Israeli scholars, notably Messrs. Sternberg, Akzin, Klinghoffer and Rubinstein. The dignity of the Court would not have suffered if the opinion-writing judge had taken a look at academic writing in a case where precedents offer little or no guidance.These remarks probably express the most original view ever put forward on this land mark case. They emphasize the crux of the complex constitutional problem discussed in the Bergmann case, i.e., the definition of the legal nature of the basic laws in the legal order of Israel. The extremely abstract questions involved in that discussion, indeed, the most abstract that exist in public law, concern the definition of the nature of the power which adopts the Constitution and more specifically, of the power which amends the Constitution.


1986 ◽  
Vol 21 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 450-500
Author(s):  
Shimon Shetreet

This article is based on a study on custom in public law conducted some years ago due to the welcome initiative of Prof. G. Tedeschi. Like many others, I too responded to his irresistible powers of persuasion, to conduct a study on custom in a field close to my area of interest, public law. I owe many thanks to Prof. Tedeschi, for by virtue of this study I have acquired significant perspectives for the analysis of public law.During the course of my work on another study (on judicial independence, conducted for the Jerusalem Institute for the Study of Israel), I discovered an historical document pertaining to Prof. Tedeschi, in whose honour this issue of the Israel Law Review appears. The document concerns an offer, addressed to Prof. Tedeschi in 1953, to be appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court.


1958 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 1026-1029 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Roche

I want to dissent initially from the rather constricting frame of reference that Schubert has established in his paper. He has every right in the world to set rhetorical snares, but I have no intention of walking into them. If I may summarize, Schubert asserts that he is a spokesman for a radical new direction in the study of public law, claiming that the old ways are moribund. He further urges that we should look with envy at the creative function of the social psychologists who supplied the Supreme Court with the banners it carried in Brown v. Board of Education while we were bumbling around with historical and philosophical trivia. He concludes that instead of wasting our time with talmudic disputations on whether the Supreme Court reached the “right” or the “wrong” decisions in specific cases, we should settle down to build a firm “scientific” foundation for our discipline.Not the least amusing aspect of this indictment is that I find myself billed as the defender of the ancien régime, as the de Maistre of public law. Therefore, for the benetfit of the young and impressionistic, let me break loose from Schubert's rhetorical trap: I too think that much of the research done in public law—and, for that matter, in political science generally—has been trivial.


1957 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-196
Author(s):  
David Fellman

No changes in the personnel of the Supreme Court occurred during the 1955 Term.Noteworthy among publications dealing with the Court and with constitutional law which appeared during the period under review were a first biography of James Wilson, a member of the original Court; symposia on the late Justice Roberts, the late Professor Thomas Reed Powell, and Justice Black; several interesting reappraisals of John Marshall; and additional installments of Professor Mason's important work on Justice Stone. A full scale critique of Charles Beard's interpretation of the Constitution was published, as well as a variety of writings on historical aspects of the Court, and on a wide range of problems of judicial practice and public law.


2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-29
Author(s):  
Tom Cross ◽  
Christopher Knight

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