It Takes Three to Quango: On the Rule-Making Powers of Independent Administrative Agencies ('Quangos')

Abstract

This short paper, written as part of the Israeli report to the 17th International Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, to be held 16-22 July 2006, Utrecht, The Netherlands is part of a larger work-in-progress concerning comparative administrative law. In this paper I introduce the British concept of a quasi-autonomous nongovernmental institution (Quango) and raise my concern as to whether this form of Non-Departmental (or governmental) Public Body (NDPB, as it is sometimes called) should have been used as a benchmark for the conference reports; then I make a brief presentation of government and non-government actors subject to public law in Israel. These entities fall under four essential categories: (1) Government ministries, where the bulk of Israeli bureaucracy is still concentrated; (2) Government companies: business corporations, essentially operating in the private domain, yet owned or controlled by the government and potentially subject to public law; (3) Statutory corporations created by an organic statute, and under the direct control of a single government branch; these are probably the entities most similar to Quangos in Israeli law; (4) Private entities performing some form of public function, to a degree that, under the jurisprudence developed by the Israeli Supreme Court, they are subjected to public law standards and judicial-administrative review to some degree.