The Future of Administrative Justice

Author(s):  
Michael Adler

This chapter considers the future of administrative justice. Using the United Kingdom as a case study, it argues that the rise and fall of administrative justice can be likened to the swing of a pendulum. It considers first-instance decision-making, the role of outsourcing, the expanding role of administrative review and its implications for administrative justice, the decline of tribunals and the rise of ombudsmen, the effectiveness of oversight arrangements, and the impact of digitalisation. It concludes that the future of administrative justice in the United Kingdom is unlikely to involve a replay of anything that has been encountered in the past.

Author(s):  
Katia Bianchini

Abstract This article examines the role of cultural expertise in asylum judicial decisions in the UK by focusing on witchcraft-based persecution. The case study highlights multiple challenges to decision-making created by religious and cultural diversity, and the ensuing problems of assessing unfamiliar facts and beliefs against the often lack of corroborating evidence. Drawing on legal sources and a small number of anthropological studies, as well as analyses of judicial decisions, the article discusses how the unique characteristics of witchcraft cases, with their unfamiliar paradigms, are illustrative of the need to analyse and understand asylum claims within their broad cultural, historical, economic, and political contexts. The article exposes how cultural expertise assists judges in appreciating specific contexts and curbing their Eurocentric understanding of culture and religion, and shapes the final outcome of cases.


Author(s):  
Harriet Samuels

Abstract The article investigates the negative attitude towards civil society over the last decade in the United Kingdom and the repercussions for human rights. It considers this in the context of the United Kingdom government’s implementation of the policy of austerity. It reflects on the various policy and legal changes, and the impact on the campaigning and advocacy work of civil society organizations, particularly those that work on social and economic rights.


Author(s):  
Laura Richards-Gray

Abstract This article argues that shared problematizations—shared political and public ways of thinking—legitimize policies and their outcomes. To support this argument, it examines the legitimation of gendered welfare reform in the recent U.K. context. Drawing on focus groups with the public, it provides evidence that the public’s problematization of welfare, specifically that reform was necessary to “make work pay” and “restore fairness”, aligned with that of politicians. It argues that the assumptions and silences underpinning this shared problematization, especially silences relating to the value and necessity of care, have allowed for welfare policies that have disadvantaged women.


Author(s):  
Stephen Bouwhuis

The inquiry by the United Kingdom into its decision to intervene in Iraq is one of the longest running and most comprehensive examinations of government decision-making. In particular, the inquiry examined in detail the processes by which legal advice was provided to and formed a part of the decision by the Government of the United Kingdom to intervene in Iraq. Through this lens, the current chapter examines what the inquiry illustrates about the general relevance of international law to the decision to intervene in Iraq and more broadly what illustrates about the role of international law in decision-making more generally. In particular, the chapter pertains to the practical and ethical aspects providing international legal advice to government as well as the nature of government legal practice more generally.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (03) ◽  
pp. 443-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Chandler

In 2013 the European Commission presented a draft directive calling for member states to increase the presence of women on corporate boards. Some countries, such as France, have taken a quota approach by passing legislation requiring corporations to increase the numbers of women on their boards over time, while the governments of other states, such as the United Kingdom, have preferred measures to encourage corporations to have more inclusive boards. While there is a growing literature on the impact that an increased presence of women can have on corporate boards, as well as a solid feminist literature on the role of quotas in political structures, there has been relatively little attention to the specific ways in which political actors have viewed the question of women on corporate boards. This article compares the ways in which quotas for women in corporate boards have been examined by the legislatures of the United Kingdom and France, with attention also to parliamentary debates in Canada and Russia. It is hypothesized that variations in political discourse help explain why conservative governments adopted such different approaches toward gender balance on corporate boards.


2019 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-84
Author(s):  
Ales BINAR

The Czechoslovak (Munich) Crisis of 1938 was concluded by an international conference that took place in Munich on 29-30 September 1938. The decision of the participating powers, i.e. France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, was made without any respect for Czechoslovakia and its representatives. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of the defence sector, i.e. the representatives of the ministry of defence and the Czechoslovak armed forces during the Czechoslovak (Munich) Crisis in the period from mid-March to the beginning of October 1938. There is also a question as to, whether there are similarities between the position then and the present-day position of the army in the decision-making process.


2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (10) ◽  
pp. 1829-1852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Taylor ◽  
Stephen Gorard

There have been many claims that the introduction of parental choice for schools in the United Kingdom would lead to further socioeconomic segregation between schools. However, little evidence of this has actually emerged. Instead during the first half of the 1990s, in particular, the number of children living in poverty became more equally distributed between UK secondary schools. Part of the explanation for this lies with the prior arrangements for allocating children to schools, typically based upon designated catchment areas. In this paper we argue that the degree of residential segregation that exists in England ensured that schools were already highly segregated before the introduction of market reforms to education, and has continued to be the chief determinant of segregation since. We then suggest that the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which advocates a return to the use of catchment areas and distance to school when allocating places in oversubscribed schools, may be leading inadvertently to increased socioeconomic segregation between schools.


2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (10) ◽  
pp. 921-931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Noble ◽  
Kevin Brazil ◽  
Aine Burns ◽  
Sarah Hallahan ◽  
Charles Normand ◽  
...  

Background: Only a paucity of studies have addressed clinician perspectives on patient decisional conflict, in making complex decisions between dialysis and conservative management (renal supportive and palliative care). Aim: To explore clinician views on decisional conflict in patients with end-stage kidney disease. Design: Interpretive, qualitative study. Setting and participants: As part of the wider National Institute for Health Research, PAlliative Care in chronic Kidney diSease study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with clinicians (nephrologists n = 12; 7 female and clinical nurse specialists n = 15; 15 female) across 10 renal centres in the United Kingdom. Interviews took place between April 2015 and October 2016 and a thematic analysis of the interview data was undertaken. Results: Three major themes with associated subthemes were identified. The first, ‘Frequent changing of mind regarding treatment options’, revealed how patients frequently altered their treatment decisions, some refusing to make a decision until deterioration occurred. The second theme, ‘Obligatory beneficence’, included clinicians helping patients to make informed decisions where outcomes were uncertain. In weighing up risks and benefits, and the impact on patients, clinicians sometimes withheld information they thought might cause concern. Finally, ‘Intricacy of the decision’ uncovered clinicians’ views on the momentous and brave decision to be made. They also acknowledged the risks associated with this complex decision in giving prognostic information which might be inaccurate. Limitations: Relies on interpretative description which uncovers constructed truths and does not include interviews with patients. Conclusion: Findings identify decisional conflict in patient decision-making and a tension between the prerequisite for shared decision-making and current clinical practice. Clinicians also face conflict when discussing treatment options due to uncertainty in equipoise between treatments and how much information should be shared. The findings are likely to resonate across countries outside the United Kingdom.


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