Administrative Justice System Research Articles

Public and Private Realms of the Administrative Justice System

Applicants who need urgent housing assistance from local government in England hope to gain the benefit for which they have applied. Should they fail to secure assistance or actual temporary accommodation, effective dispute processes would need to be in place within the administrative justice system. Yet, what would effective dispute management mechanisms look like to homeless applicants who might be experiencing ‘applicant fatigue’? This article examines the situation of the homeless applicant, aspects of whose private life is being processed by a public administrative and legal system, and considers the measures that need to be in place for homeless applicants to be able to access the full benefits of the non-legal and legal mechanisms.
 Keywords: homelessness; complaints; reviews; applicant fatigue; applicant–administrator relationship

Justice in the East of Ukraine During the Ongoing Armed Conflict

This article reviews the consequences of the invasion by military elements of the Russian Federation and its adjuncts, including pro-Russian separatist armed groups, 1 into Ukraine’s eastern regions or oblasts following Russia’s annexation of the Crimea. The review focuses on the adverse impact and ongoing trespass on Ukraine’s (i) criminal and, to a lesser extent, civil and administrative justice systems; (ii) police, prosecutorial and court institutions; (iii) access to justice by the Ukrainian citizens residing in the conflict zones of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and (iv) the long-term implications of restoring Ukraine’s justice framework to the conflict areas once the invading forces are routed. The authors summarize the efforts of the invasive forces to undermine the rule of law by establishing their own presumptive rogue constructs for processing matters ordinarily adjudicated by sovereign courts. These rogue constructs staffed by persons of unquestioning political loyalty to the Russian Federation and operating pursuant to substantive law and procedure based on Russian legal models. Keywords: justice in Ukraine’s eastern oblasts

Italian Experience of the Administrative Justice Functioning

The development of administrative legal proceedings in Ukraine determines the search for optimal ways to improve the system. Each country has its own strategy for the functioning of administrative justice, which depends on cultural, historical, national, integration processes, as well as the gradual formation of the legal system of a particular state. The main purpose of the study is to analyse the Italian experience of the administrative justice functioning. To achieve this goal, various theoretical methods are used. The method of legal forecasting allowed to identify areas for improvement of administrative justice in Ukraine. The author presents the concept and features of administrative justice operation in Italy in matters of protection of violated rights, freedoms and interests of individual and citizen by decisions, actions and omissions of the authorities; analyses the system and structure of administrative justice in Italy, its specialisation; features of some categories of public law disputes and delimitation of jurisdiction of administrative courts and general courts in resolving certain categories of administrative cases, features of their reading in administrative courts of Italy of first and appellate instance; powers of the Italian State Council in resolving public law disputes, and powers of quasi-judicial tribunals of Italy, which perform the functions of justice. It is revealed that the administrative courts of Italy are empowered with the rights to assess the activities of public administration. Based on the experience of other countries, including Italy, we can conclude that a well-built system of administrative justice can help protect the rights of Ukrainian citizens and the rule of law. But it is important not only to focus on foreign countries, but also to take into account the peculiarities of the legal system of Ukraine

Adopting Artificial Intelligence to the Practice of Law in Nigeria – Lawyer’s Delight or Dismay

Studies have shown that the existential problem in our Nigerian legal system is the overburdened state of our judiciary. Since 1958 when AI was discovered, there has been an increased demand for Artificial Intelligence in diverse industries and sectors of national economies. These machines have been programmed not only to outsmart the human intellect but to become the world’s leading help. So, why then is it yet to be incorporated into our administration of justice system? This quantitative research paper sets out to identify the relevance of AI to the Nigerian legal industry with analogies to the global clime and reaches a compromise that there is need to adopt Artificial Intelligence into the legal sector.

Understanding how and when change occurs in the administrative justice system: the ombudsman/ tribunal partnership as a catalyst for reform?

ABSTRACT This article explores the ongoing condition of the ombudsman sector through models of change adopted from the social science literature. Debates about change are fleshed out through an analysis of the ombudsman/tribunal partnership initiative currently underway. As well as providing an explanation for the slow process of reform in the ombudsman sector, the article highlights the need for further research into the partnership initiative to detail the strengths, weaknesses and sustainability of such bottom-up reform agendas in the administrative justice system. We conclude that the impact of each individual initiative is likely to be minor but as a process they represent important moments of institutional learning which, in the context of current crisis, could operate as catalysts for major administrative justice reform.

Justice in the Digital State: Assessing the Next Revolution in Administrative Justice by JoeTomlinson (Bristol: Policy Press, 2019, 97 pp., £12.99 (pbk))

Justice in the Digital State: Assessing the Next Revolution in Administrative Justice by JoeTomlinson (Bristol: Policy Press, 2019, 97 pp., £12.99 (pbk))

Miejsce i rola tzw. urzędów mieszanych w administracji gubernialnej Królestwa Polskiego po powstaniu styczniowym

<p>The Russian model of supervision and control of administration was introduced in the Kingdom of Poland concurrently with the reorganisation of the governorate and district administration after the January Uprising. The supervisory functions were taken over by the newly established bodies of the governorate and district administration of individual sectors of ministerial administration, for which the ministers residing in St. Petersburg were the final decisive body. On the other hand, the abolition of the Council of State of the Kingdom of Poland in 1867 entailed the final liquidation of the administrative justice system based on the French model, which had operated on these lands since the times of the Duchy of Warsaw. Its tasks were taken over by so-called “mixed offices” which filled the resulting gap only partially. Unlike administrative courts, these offices formed an integral part of the governorate administration, and their clerical staff as well as the bureaucratic method of operation compromised their judicial independence. Moreover, the procedure for dispute resolution in these offices had the character of an intra-administrative procedure which did not employ the concept of a party, and its discretionary course excluded the possibility of applying the principles of adversarial process, openness to the public or dispositiveness. The peculiarity of “mixed offices” in the Kingdom of Poland, resulting solely from political reasons, was the reduction of their staffing only to the bureaucratic element and full subordination of their substantive and formal side of the proceedings to the governorate authorities. As a result, the judicial activity of “mixed offices” in administrative matters in the Kingdom of Poland was much more dependent on the current policies of the tsarist authorities represented and supervised directly by the governors than in the interior governorates of the Empire. The combination of these factors with the discretionary rules of intra-ministerial proceedings applied in these offices deprived inhabitants of the Kingdom of Poland of a guarantee of impartial defence of their rights and interests in disputes with the administration that was foreign and distrustful to them.</p>

Problem-Solving Initiatives in Administrative and Criminal Law in the Netherlands

In this contribution we describe how efforts to solve the problems of litigants, suspects and victims are organized in the Dutch administrative and criminal justice systems. Contrary to the problem-solving courts that we know from the United States and Australia, problem-solving justice in the Netherlands is for a large part in the hands of administrative authorities and a variety of agencies in the criminal justice organisation. The possibilities for judges to actually solve litigants’ problems are few, at least in administrative and criminal law. This is related to a lack of expertise and training, but also to time pressure and a lack of involvement of non-judicial expertise in the courts. With regard to the criminal justice system, there is a resistance to a more extensive intervention of the judges in problem-solving initiatives, as this would be at odds with their impartiality and independence. The results of several empirical studies show that the Dutch approach can be quite successful if it comes to ‘keeping cases out of court’. To a certain extent, this approach helps solve concrete problems of parties and of persons situated in a criminal law context. On the negative side, the position of interested parties in administrative decision-making is quite weak, and the same is true for suspects in the criminal justice domain.

РОЗВИТОК АДМІНІСТРАТИВНОГО ПРАВА ТА АДМІНІСТРАТИВНО-ПРАВОВОЇ ДОКТРИНИ В ЛИТВІ

The system of national law and the corresponding system of democratic authorities had to guarantee optimal protection of the individual’s fundamental freedoms and rights, and help to create human welfare. Science of administrative law is constantly evolving, and its insights are strategic in nature, oriented towards the future. There is often a struggle for new ideas, opinions, concepts, paradigms to be embedded or denied. The new, old, inaccurate statements are changed to be more accurate, the new ideas criticize the old ones, and life practices raise new problems that science must answer rationally. The science of administrative law in Lithuania is not static, it is constantly changing as the administrative law itself changes. The concept of administrative law is changing, its regulation is expanding. The science of administrative law is an integral part of Lithuanian law science, where the specialists of administrative law – scientists investigate the essence of this branch of law, its subject matter and separate institutes and in general all actual problems of administrative legal practice and science of the whoel country. This article is the first scientific research in the cycle of articles “Development of Administrative Law and Administrative Legal Doctrine in Lithuania”. The purpose of this article is to present the development of administrative law and administrative law doctrine in Lithuania since 1990 by analysing the works of Lithuanian scientists in this field through the categories defined in the research tasks. In order to achieve the aim of the article, the following tasks are raised: briefly to introduce and discuss the development of Lithuanian administrative law science and administrative law as a category, to define and analyse the goals of administrative law, the subject of regulation and the system of administrative law in Lithuania. In order to achieve the aim and tasks of the research, the analysis of the works of Lithuanian scientists and the main laws implementing the administrative legal regulation of Lithuania was performed. Methods. Historical comparative, documents’ analysis, synthesis and other methods were used for research. Results of research showed that Lithuania has modern administrative law and administrative justice system, that meets nowadays meets and European Union justice standards’ requirements. Conclusions. We can conclude that Lithuanian scientists understand the administrative law in broad sense as law of management and described quite wide range of its regulation subjects. After Lithuania’s accession to the European Union and its commitment to take over its acquis communautaire, the entire Lithuanian legal system, together with administrative law, had to adapt to change. Implementation of the provisions of the European Union legislation in Lithuanian law has become a priority. The abundance of administrative legal regulation at European Union level and the need for its application in the case-law have created challenging tasks for administrative law science. An accurate analysis of the implementation of European Union legislation in the systems of state power and public administration in Lithuania, analysis of administrative legal systems of the Member States of the European Union, search for similarities and differences, effective defence of the rights and legitimate interests of a person when a Member State misapplies (waives) the provisions of European Union legislation, the jurisdiction of national courts to deal with damages where, for example, damage caused by inappropriate application of European Union law is made by a court of final instance in the state, and other issues become the subject of modern administrative law research.

To the question of the concept, subject, method and system of administrative justice of Ukraine

To the question of the concept, subject, method and system of administrative justice of Ukraine

An Irrevocably Tainted Opinion: Zen’s Threat to Public Discourse

In Zen Magnets v. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the court barred a federal agency decision maker from participating in a case based on an irrevocably closed mind test satisfied by an open-ended “appearance of impropriety” standard. The decision failed to follow the well-worn path that requires a presumption of honesty, integrity, and good faith for administrative actors. The exclusion from this case, an enforcement action, was based on a single comment made several years earlier in a rulemaking. This action denied unjustly a fair-minded and distinguished agency official from exercising the right and responsibility to participate in an important case. The core of the holding in Zen is predicated on an assumption of mistrust, the exact opposite assumption mandated by the Supreme Court. Were this approach to become the norm, it would chill the essential discourse between agency officials and the public, unnecessarily formalize agency process, and increase the likelihood of uninformed enforcement or regulation. The ramifications and downstream hazards of sanctioning agency decision makers in this manner are obvious and significant. Were Zen followed, it would undermine the system of administrative justice, erode public confidence in agency action, and demonize legions of committed public servants who, in good faith, share their perspectives with those they regulate. The goal is to keep open channels of communication, encourage commentary and public discourse, not chill and suppress this vital means of governance.

The Role of National Ombudsman’s Offices in Promoting the Concept of good Administration in Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo. The way ahead

The private persons in any democratic state should have a right to dispute the administrative decisions affecting their rights, freedoms or interests before (among others) competent independent courts. It is the key precondition for the principle of transparent and responsible public administration as an integral part of democratic governance. In addition to the “judiciary control of the administrative decisions”, the private persons` human rights against the public administration may be also protected through the Ombudsman office. The increasing importance of the afore mentioned issues relating public administration and the various types of control of the administrative acts been long time ago reflected in the mandate of almost all of the key international inter-governmental organizations, especially the European ones including the Council of Europe, the European Union and the OSCE. The establishment of both effective public administration and administrative justice system has been for a long period of time among the most “important and urgent” final strategic objectives of almost any country in the Balkans region, including Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo. This process included (among others) establishing European-like Ombudsman offices in these countries. Against the above background the present paper firstly explains why the administration action must be controlled by the public, and it then outlines the European Right of Good Administration, the Ombudsman Office`s mandate. This is then followed by presenting the concept of European Administrative Space in terms of the Role of the OECD-SIGMA in Developing the Standards of Good Administration. Against the preceding sub-sections the paper further presents the basic legislative framework for action of the National Ombudsman Offices in Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo, which is then followed by a short review of the actual state of play of the Principle No.2 of the SIGMA European Principles for Public Administration (as specifically related to the accountability) in the three countries, on the basis of the relevant international monitoring reports, including the most recent EU Commission`s Progress Report on those countries. The paper finally concludes that Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo all have already established the basic legislative framework for establishing their national administrative judiciary system alongside which there is the one related to their own national Ombudsman office as well, while all of them are still more or less far from being fully in line with the principle No.2 of the SIGMA European Principles for Public Administration (as specifically related to the accountability). As to later, the paper particularly stresses that Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo have (more or less) adopted rules on independent status, functioning and powers of their own ombudsman office and other oversight institutions in line with the relevant international standards, but their administrations are still too far of being ready and willing to fully implementing the ombudsman institutions` recommendations. The fully implementation of the above Principle No.2 is therefore one of the most important and serious present challenges for Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo on their individual road towards the EU membership, in terms of building up their individual European administrative capacity.

Administrative Functions of Implementation and Adjudication Guided by Primacy of Fundamental Rights

Abstract This article points out the bottlenecks in the systems of administrative adjudication in Latin America and suggests that the ineffectiveness should not be blamed entirely on the judicial system and judicial procedures. Rather, the Latin-American system of administrative justice should come to terms with its judicial system of general jurisdiction, gradually reducing the jurisdiction of courts over administrative disputes in favor of an administrative reform to ensure administrative functions of implementation and adjudication respecting the primacy of fundamental rights. The author concludes that it is necessary to think about a reform that leads public administrative authorities to act as an instrument for expressing the public interest rather than as end in itself or as an entity to protect self-serving, momentary political and financial interests that are not clearly bound by a duty to protect fundamental rights.

DESIGNING ADMINISTRATIVE JUSTICE

This article explores the adaptation of design thinking to administrative justice. The human centred design perspective has been missing from most debates surrounding the design and reform of administrative tribunals in Canada. As a result, the author asserts that the administrative justice system in Canada at all levels of government (federal, provincial, municipal, and Indigenous) is generally fragmented, poorly coordinated, and under-resourced in relation to the needs of its users and has multiple barriers of entry. 
 This article is divided into two parts. The first part reviews the development of design thinking in the context of legal services and legal organizations. The second part explores the implications of this development for administrative justice, particularly in the context of the establishment of new tribunals. Several examples of tribunal reform are examined from a design thinking perspective. By way of conclusion, the author suggests the criteria that should be applied to evaluate the design of a new administrative tribunal.

Mapping current issues in administrative justice: austerity and the ‘more bureaucratic rationality’ approach

This article critically reviews recent developments in the administrative justice system; in particular, it considers three key themes: improving initial decisions; administrative review; and the future of tribunals. In each of these areas, some aspects of administrative justice work well, but austerity has presented acute challenges in ensuring the fair and just treatment of people through restrictions upon legal aid; the withdrawal of some appeal rights; and the expansion of administrative review. Consequently, the system is moving away from a ‘legal’ model of administrative justice to the ‘bureaucratic rationality’ model, which focuses upon accurate and efficient implementation. However, the reality does not correspond with the goals of the model. Rather than accurate and efficient implementation of policy, what we find is poor decision-making made by junior officials with insufficient quality controls. Digitising tribunals may have potential benefits in terms of increased accessibility. Nonetheless, the prospects for administrative justice are weak.

The Individual in the Reformation of the UK's Bureaucratic StateeAdministrative Justice, Brexit, and Human Rights

This paper highlights the importance of attending to the necessary reforms that will take place within the UK’s administrative justice system (i.e. within the executive branch) in the wake of Brexit. Whatever results from the UK’s negotiations with the EU, Brexit will necessitate wide-ranging and fast-paced administrative reform. This reform will likely create an environment where there is a higher risk of individual rights violations (or general unfairness to the individual). Consideration must therefore be given to maintaining, and perhaps creating, mechanisms which will provide effective safeguards during this reformation. In this respect, it is suggested that—whatever one’s view about the UK’s present system of rights protection—the long-proposed reform of the UK’s human rights system ought to be parked. More generally, Brexit ought to be understood by administrative lawyers as not only a possible shift in the judicial principles of administrative law but also as a design problem facing the administrative justice system.

Prescriptive strategies to combat corruption within the administration of justice sector in Nigeria

PurposeA new republic has just begun in Nigeria in 2015 with the election of two anti-corruption crusaders as President and Vice president, respectively. Although very few empirical studies exist on the subject of corruption within the justice system in Nigeria the intolerable popular impression is that the machinery of justice in Nigeria is quite notoriously corrupt. The aim of this paper is to identify strategies and mechanisms that will enhance the professionalism, effectiveness, integrity, accountability and transparency of the organisations within Nigeria’s administration of justice system both at the federal and state levels including Ministries of Justice, the Police, the Prison Service, immigration, customs and even the Bar.Design/methodology/approachLiterature research is used to examine the problem. The author looks at corruption in the context of Nigerian laws. He tabulates the offences within the scope of the prohibition against corruption in Nigeria, as well as the incidences of corruption within the various sections of the criminal justice system. The prescriptive recommendations are divided into short-, medium- and long-term measures.FindingsThat corruption is actually prevalent in all areas of the Nigerian justice system. It is crucial that an impression must be made by the new administration in this area within a very short frame of time to arrest the situation and to reverse the damage caused so far.Research limitations/implicationsWord limit has not enabled us to go into deeper analysis. Lack of objective studies done from within the Nigeria justice sector itself on the manifestation of corruption.Originality/valueVery original analysis based on unique insight into the issue as academics, lawyers and practitioners within Nigerian anticorruption institutions.

Administrative justice in Wales: a new egalitarianism?

Administrative justice systems are under a variety of pressures, in particular austerity-inspired civil justice reform. I argue that such pressures do not necessitate the decline of administrative justice, and that a developing Welsh model has cross-jurisdictional appeal, especially to legal orders currently lacking a relevant organisational centre and joined-up approach. I examine the efficacy of existing conceptions of administrative justice and delineate a developing Welsh approach grounded in egalitarian principles. The nascent Welsh model emphasises reforming administrative justice hierarchies so that they work harmoniously with regulatory and value-promoting parts of the system, focusing on user perspectives and tackling the risks of less transparent forms of bureaucratic decision-making.

Inejecución de sentencias que condenan a la Administración a desplegar una actuación dirigida a la realización de un derecho subjetivo. El caso de la reintroducción del castellano como lengua vehicular en la enseñanza catalana

The execution of rulings coming from Courts of administrative litigation has always been plagued by conflicts. The Administration is tempted to resist carrying out an adverse court ruling. The Courts are equipped with plenty of powers to beat the resistance. A fundamental right is on the line: the effective judicial protection, which extends to the court ruling’s effective realisation. This piece of work deals with a case with an added difficulty. The linguistic policy applied by the Generalitat de Cataluña for many years has pushed Spanish aside as a teaching language, not allowing it to coexist with Catalan when it comes to imparting lessons. Some parents have requested the right to reintroduction, which has been recognised by the Supreme Court, in numerous rulings, and by Catalonia’s Supreme Court of Justice. Such right’s full and effective realisation has collided with the Generalitat’s resistance. In this piece of work I describe such resistance and the decisions adopted by the Courts to overcome it, as well as analysing the structural problems that our administrative justice system has to deal with when Court rulings force the Administration to adopt decisions such as guaranteeing that 25% of hours be taught in Spanish.

The Execution of a Sentence Given by the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura: A Critical Aspect of the Current Canonical System of Administrative Justice?

This article deals with a fundamental theme for the very functionality of the canonical contentious-administrative system: namely, that of the possibility to watch over the right execution of the sentences given by the Supreme Apostolic Forum. Indeed, without the possibility of an objective judgment concerning the conformity of the decisions made there is the risk of rendering useless the entire canonical contentious-administrative institution, which was introduced into the life of the Church to guarantee for the faithful who are administered a real legal protection of their rights in the event that they should be infringed upon by a singular administrative act placed by the public administration. After presenting the concrete case of Chicago it is developed with a reflection on the argument, analyzing the new dispositions given by the recent Lex propria of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura at articles 92-94 ; from there, one can see how a possible solution is finally offered by the same norms.