14. Administrative justice: tribunals, ombudsmen, and public inquiries

Public Law ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Stanton ◽  
Craig Prescott

This chapter discusses the concept of administrative justice. The complexity and scale of modern government means that it is inevitable that sometimes things will go wrong. Public bodies make hundreds of thousands of decisions each year. Sometimes, the pressures of making thousands of decisions on finite resources mean that public bodies may not treat members of the public appropriately and not fulfil the aims of good government. When things go wrong, some will wish to challenge decisions made by the public authorities. Although such disputes are usually resolved by the courts applying the principles of judicial review, alternatives such as statutory tribunals, the ombudsman, and public inquiry provide other ways to challenge decisions made by public bodies. These three procedures form the basis of the system of administrative justice.

Public Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 559-619
Author(s):  
John Stanton ◽  
Craig Prescott

This chapter discusses the concept of administrative justice. The complexity and scale of modern government means that it is inevitable that sometimes things will go wrong. Public bodies make hundreds of thousands of decisions each year. Sometimes, the pressures of making thousands of decisions on finite resources mean that public bodies may not treat members of the public appropriately and not fulfil the aims of good government. When things go wrong, some will wish to challenge decisions made by the public authorities. Although such disputes are usually resolved by the courts applying the principles of judicial review, alternatives such as statutory tribunals, the ombudsman, and public inquiry provide other ways to challenge decisions made by public bodies. These three procedures form the basis of the system of administrative justice.


2019 ◽  
pp. 313-338
Author(s):  
Anne Dennett

This chapter focuses on the administrative justice system. Administrative justice refers to the systems that enable individuals to resolve complaints, grievances, and disputes about administrative or executive decisions of public bodies, and to obtain redress. Grievance mechanisms exist to achieve redress and to ensure accountability and improved public administration. They include formal court action through judicial review, but range well beyond the courts to informal, non-legal mechanisms. Whereas a public inquiry may concern a grievance of a larger section of the public and can raise political issues, an inquiry by an Ombudsman concerns a grievance of an individual or small group, with a different fact-finding process. Meanwhile, tribunals determine rights and entitlements in disputes between citizens and state in specific areas of law, such as social security, immigration and asylum, and tax.


2021 ◽  
pp. 329-355
Author(s):  
Anne Dennett

This chapter focuses on the administrative justice system. Administrative justice refers to the systems that enable individuals to resolve complaints, grievances, and disputes about administrative or executive decisions of public bodies, and to obtain redress. Grievance mechanisms exist to achieve redress and to ensure accountability and improved public administration. They include formal court action through judicial review, but range well beyond the courts to informal, non-legal mechanisms. Whereas a public inquiry may concern a grievance of a larger section of the public and can raise political issues, an inquiry by an Ombudsman concerns a grievance of an individual or small group, with a different fact-finding process. Meanwhile, tribunals determine rights and entitlements in disputes between citizens and state in specific areas of law, such as social security, immigration and asylum, and tax.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (102) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Ainhoa Uribe Otalora

Resumen:La Constitución española establece en su artículo 3 que el castellano es la lengua oficial del Estado, al tiempo que reconoce la existencia de un plurilingüismo. Sin embargo, existen territorios donde los ciudadanos se enfrentan a una situación desigual a la hora de emplear el castellano como lengua vehicular. Esta situación es aún más grave si la desigualdad procede de los poderes públicos. El artículo es un estudio de caso del acceso a la información pública en lengua castellana, no en vano, junto al mandato del artículo 3 CE, el artículo 9 CE obliga a los poderes públicos a publicar las normas (lo que supone publicarlas también en español), al tiempo que el principio de publicidad se vio reforzado por la aprobación de la Ley 19/2013, de 9 de diciembre, de Transparencia, Acceso a la Información Pública y Buen Gobierno, y por las respectivas leyes de transparencia autonómicas, que regulan el acceso de los ciudadanos a la información pública. Dicho acceso a la documentación de carácter público debe hacerse, por ende, en la lengua oficial del país, así como en las lenguas cooficiales en sus respectivos territorios. Por ello, el artículo analiza el mayor o menor grado de acceso en lengua castellana a los documentos que publican ensu página web los distintos parlamentos autonómicos, sean de naturaleza legal, política, económica o de otro tipo. En consecuencia, aquí se realiza un estudio de caso centrado en las seis Cámaras autonómicas con lenguas cooficiales, para verificar el grado de cumplimiento del artículo 3 CE, el artículo 9 CE, y el el artículo 12 de la Ley 19/2013, de 9 de diciembre, de transparencia, acceso a la información pública y buen gobierno. Son los siguientes: 1) El Parlamento Vasco (Eusko Legebiltzarra); 2) el Parlamento Navarro (Nafarroako Parlamentua); 3) el Parlamento Catalán (Parlament de Catalunya); 4) el Parlamento Valenciano (Corts Valencianes); 5) el Parlamento de Baleares (Parlament de les Illes Balears); y 6) el Parlamento Gallego (Parlamento de Galicia). El objetivo último de la presente investigación es abordar unas conclusiones que permitan fortalecer y hacer cumplir el mandato constitucional, así como permitir a los ciudadanos hacer uso de su lengua oficial.Summary:I. Introduction: Approach of the Study Object. II. Legal Approach to the question. 2.1. The article 3 of the Constitution: background and meaning. 2.2. The constitutional principles of multilinguism. 2.3. The regional legal framework of bilingualism 2.4. Jurisprudence on the Spanish language. 2.5. The right to get access to law and public information in Spanish language. III. The praxis of the regional parliaments in the compliance with the article 3CE, the art. 9 CE, and the art. 12 of the Act of Transparency. IV. Conclusions. V. Bibliography.Abstract:The Spanish Constitution establishes in the article 3 that the Spanish is the official language of the State. It also enshrines the existence of mutilinguism in the country. However, there are some territories where citizens face inequalities when using Spanish as their mother tongue. This situation is even harder if the inequalities come from public powers. The article focuses on the citizens’ access to public information in Spanish. In fact, not only the Spanish is the official language (art. 3 CE), but also the article 9 of the Constitution forces the public authorities to publish laws (which means also to publish them in Spanish), as well as the Act of Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Government (Ley 19/2013) enables citizens to get access to public information (which means to access to the documents also in Spanish). Hence, the articleanalyses the level of public access in Spanish to the documents uploaded on the websites of the regional parliaments. Therefore, it is a case study focused on the six regional parliaments with more than one official language. They are the following ones: 1) The Basque Parliament (Eusko Legebiltzarra); 2) the Parliament of Navarra (Nafarroako Parlamentua); 3) the Parliament of Catalonia (Parlament de Catalunya); 4) the Valencian Parliament (Corts Valencianes); 5) the Parliament of the Balearic Islands (Parlament de les Illes Balears); and 6) the Galician Parliament (Parlamento de Galicia). It will study the level of compliance with the article 3 and 9 of the Constitution and the article 12 of the Act of Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Government (Ley 19/2013). The aim of the article is to get to conclusions that enable the legislator to strengthen and force the compliance with the constitutional mandate, as well as to empower citizens to use the official language.


2021 ◽  
pp. 50-52
Author(s):  
Delphine Costa

This chapter describes administrative procedure and judicial review in France. In French public law, no constitutional provision provides for judicial review of administrative measures. Nor is there a convention providing for judicial review of administrative measures. This is only envisaged by the laws and regulations, in particular the Administrative Justice Code and the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration. The administrative courts exercise extensive control over the acts or measures of the public administration, including both individual decisions and regulatory acts, but some are nonetheless beyond judicial review. Where an act or measure is contested on procedural grounds, judicial review takes place only under certain conditions: the procedural defect must have deprived the applicant of a guarantee or it must have influenced the meaning of the decision taken. Two types of judicial remedy exist in administrative law: it is therefore up to the applicant to limit their application before the administrative judge.


Author(s):  
Neil Parpworth

Judicial review is a procedure whereby the courts determine the lawfulness of the exercise of executive power. It is concerned with the legality of the decision-making process as opposed to the merits of the actual decision. Thus it is supervisory rather than appellate. Emphasis is also placed on the fact that the jurisdiction exists to control the exercise of power by public bodies. This chapter discusses the supervisory jurisdiction of the courts, procedural reform, the rule in O’Reilly v Mackman, the public law/private law distinction, collateral challenge, and exclusion of judicial review. The procedure for making a claim for judicial review under the Civil Procedural Rules (CPR) 54 is outlined.


2021 ◽  
pp. 356-374
Author(s):  
Anne Dennett

This chapter looks at the purpose and constitutional significance of judicial review. Where public bodies overreach themselves by acting unlawfully, the judicial review process allows individuals to hold public bodies to account in the courts, ensuring that governmental and public powers are lawfully exercised. This maintains the rule of law by helping to protect the public from the arbitrary or unreasonable exercise of government power. Judicial review is therefore a powerful check and control by the courts on executive action, but it also raises issues of whether the process gives the judiciary too much power over the elected government. There are three preliminary or threshold issues that a claimant needs to satisfy when bringing a judicial review claim. To be amenable to judicial review, the claim must raise a public law matter; it must be justiciable; and the claimant must have standing (locus standi).


2021 ◽  
pp. 62-64
Author(s):  
Diana-Urania Galetta ◽  
Paolo Provenzano

This chapter illustrates administrative procedure and judicial review in Italy. According to article 113 of the Italian Constitution, 'the judicial safeguarding of rights and legitimate interests before the organs of ordinary or administrative justice is always permitted towards acts of the public administration'. In Italy, judicial review of administrative action is performed by specific courts: a court of first instance, called Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale (TAR), which is established in every Region, and the Consiglio di Stato (Council of State), which acts as an appeal court. The judicial process before these courts is now regulated by the Code of Administrative Process (CAP). Article 7 CAP provides that the administrative courts have jurisdiction over all acts that the public administrations and legal entities equivalent to them adopt in the exercise of their administrative authority. Since 1889, the Italian system of administrative justice has centred on the provision that administrative acts can be annulled by the administrative courts only in cases of 'breach of law', 'misuse or abuses of power', and/or 'lack of competence'.


2021 ◽  
pp. 428-464
Author(s):  
Timothy Endicott

This chapter examines standing—the entitlement to be heard by a court. No judicial process of any kind may proceed without it. In an ordinary claim, the claimant’s standing is based on his assertion of grounds for his claim to a remedy. In a claim for judicial review, the claimant does not need to assert a right to a remedy, but must have a ‘sufficient interest’ in the matter in dispute. The discussion covers campaign litigation, costs in campaign litigation, standing in an ordinary claim for a declaration, standing in Human Rights Act proceedings, standing for public authorities, and standing to intervene.


Author(s):  
Mark Elliott ◽  
Jason Varuhas

This chapter examines the role of the ombudsmen in the administrative justice system. It first traces the origins of the ‘public sector ombudsmen’, including the Parliamentary Ombudsman, in the UK. It then considers the need for and the functions of the ombudsmen, along with the place of the ombudsmen in a changing administrative landscape. It also discusses bodies and matters subject to investigation by the Ombudsman based on the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967, including ‘maladministration’, and the Ombudsman's discretion to investigate. Finally, the chapter reviews the conduct and consequences of the Ombudsman's investigations, paying attention to judicial review of the ombudsmen's conclusions, and institutional matters pertaining to the ombudsman system.


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