INDEX

Introduction of Administrative Law 3

What is Law 4
Meaning of Administrative law 4
Definitions 4
Administrative Law in England 6
Background 6
Development of Administrative Law in UK 6
Administrative Law in US 8
Background 8
Development of Administrative Law in USA 9
BIBILIOGRAPHY 11

2
 Introduction of Administrative Law

Administrative law has become very necessary in the developed society, the
relationship of the administrative authorities and the people have become
very complex. In order to regulate these complex, relations, some law is
necessary, which may bring about regularity certainty and may check at the
same time the misuse of powers vested in the administration.

The development of Administrative law is an inevitable necessity of the

modern times; a study of administrative law acquaints us with those rules
according to which the administration is to be carried on. Administrative Law
has been characterized as the most outstanding legal development of the
20th-century.

Administrative Law is that branch of the law, which is concerned, with the
composition of powers, duties, rights and liabilities of the various organs of
the Government. The rapid growth of administrative Law in modern times is
the direct result of the growth of administrative powers. The ruling gospel of
the 19th century was Laissez faire which manifested itself in the theories of
individualism, individual enterprise and self help. The philosophy envisages
minimum government control, maximum free enterprise and contractual
freedom. But laissez faire doctrine resulted in human misery. It came to be
realized that the bargaining position of every person was not equal and
uncontrolled contractual freedom led to the exploitation of weaker sections by
the stronger e.g. of the labour by the management in industries. On the one
hand, slums, unhealthy and dangerous conditions of work, child labour wide
spread poverty and exploitation of masses, but on the other hand,
concentration of wealth in a few hands, became the order of the day. It came
to be recognized that the state should take active interest in ameliorating the
conditions of poor. This approach gave rise to the favoured state intervention
in and social control and regulation of individual enterprise. The state started
to act in the interests of social justice; it assumed a “positive” role. In course
of time, out of dogma of collectivism emerged the concept of “Social Welfare
State” which lays emphasis on the role of state as a vehicle of socio-economic
regeneration and welfare of the people.

3
Thus the growth of administrative law is to be attributed to a change of
philosophy as to the role and function of state. The shifting of gears from
laissez faire state to social welfare state has resulted in change of role of the
state.

What is Law

Law, the discipline and profession concerned with the customs, practices, and
rules of conduct of a community that are recognized as binding by the
community. Enforcement of the body of rules is through a
controlling authority.

Meaning of Administrative law

Administrative law is the law relating to the administrative operation of

government. It deals with powers and duties, of administrative authorities,
the procedure followed by them in exercising the powers and discharging the
duties and the remedies available to an aggrieved person when his rights are
affected by any administrative action One of the advances in the realm of law
made during the last two centuries was the establishment, recognition and
enforcement of certain principles and rules intended to govern the functions
and powers of governmental authorities. Accordingly the principles and rules
evolved to govern the functions and powers of governmental authoritles are
called administrative law.

Definitions

Narrowed Wide Balaced

AV Dicey Ivor Jennings Wade and Philips
Griffith and Street
Jain and Jain
4
Dicey
Dicey defines administrative law as denoting that portion of a nation's legal
system which determines the legal status and liabilities of all state officials,
which defines the rights and liabilities of private individuals in their dealings
with public officials, and which specifies the procedure by which those rights
and liabilities are enforced.

Ivor Jennings
According to Sir Ivor Jennings, "Administrative Law is the law relating to the
administration. It determines the organisation, powers and duties of
Administrative authorities.

Wade and Philips

Wade and Philips define administrative law much on the lines of Jennings.
According to them,
"Administrative law is a branch of public law which is concerned with the
composition, powers, duties, rights and liabilities of the various organs of
government which are engaged in administration."

Griffith and Street

According to Griffith and Street administrative law is concerned with three
questions:
(1) What sort of powers does the administration exercise ?
(2) What are the limits of those powers ?
(3) What are the ways in which the administration is kept within those limits?

According to the Indian Law Institute the following two questions must be
added to have a complete idea of present day administrative law :
(4) What are the procedures followed by administrative authorities ?
(5) What are the remedies available to a person affected by administration ?

Jain and Jain

According to Jain and Jain "Administrative Law deals with the structure,
powers and unctions of the organs of administration, the limits of their
powers, the methods and procedures followed by them in exercising their
powers and functions, the methods by which their powers are controlled

5
including the legal remedies available to a person against them when his
rights are infringed by their operation."

This definition covers four aspects of administrative law. Firstly, it deals with
composition and the powers of administrative authorities. Secondly, it fixes
the limits of the powers of such administrative authorities. Thirdly, it
prescribes the procedure to be followed by these authorities in exercising such
powers. And fourthly, it controls these administrative authorities through
judicial and other means.

Administrative Law in England

Background

The UK is a constitutional monarchy. The Head of State is the monarch (not a

president), whose duties, functions and powers are conscribed by convention.
One of the conventions is that the monarch is politically neutral.
The United Kingdom (the UK) has three separate legal systems: one each for
England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This reflects its historical
origins. The answers below deal primarily with the legal system of England
and Wales but make reference to other parts of the UK where relevant.
The UK has an unwritten constitution in that there is no single written
document that sets out the rights of individual citizens and how the
Government should act. The UK constitution is comprised of a variety of
sources, some of which are written (such as statutes) and others (such as
constitutional conventions), which are unwritten.

Development of Administrative Law in UK

Administrative law existed in England. However, it was not accepted as a

separate branch of law until the advent of the 20th century. In 1885 Dicey in
his famous thesis on rule of law observed that there was no administrative law
in England. Albert Venn Dicey famously denied the existence of
administrative laws in England and even denied the possibility of
administrative law in all those countries that followed English laws. He had
propounded to Robson "In England we know nothing of Administrative Law
and we wish to know nothing about it." But while asserting so he ignored the
6
existence of administrative discretion and administrative justice which were
current even in his days. In numerous statutes discretionary powers were
conferred on executive bodies and administrative tribunals which could not
be called into question before the ordinary courts of law. However he
disregarded them altogether. It is contemporary Mainland appears to be quite
conscious about the true position as he observed in 1887. '"If you take up a
modern volume of the reports of the Queen's Bench Division you will find that
about half of tine cases reported have to do with rules of administrative law "
In 1914 Dicey changed his opinion. In the last edition of his classical book,
Law of the. Constitution, published in 1915 he admitted that during the last
thirty years due to increase of duties and authority of English Officials some
elements of Droit have entered f in the Law of England. But even then he did
not concede that there was administrative law in England. However, he
admitted the existence of administrative law in England after two decisions of
the House of Lords in Board of Education v. Rice1 and Local Government
‑

Board v. Arlidge2. In his article the development of Administrative Law in

England he observed, "legislation had conferred a considerable amount of
quasi-judicial authority on the administration which was a considerable step
towards the introduction of administrative law in England”. While taking note
of Dicey's view, Friedman has observed that unfortunately. Dicey
misunderstood the scope and ambit of administrative law. While studying the
rule of law, he excluded altogether administrative law and special system of
administrative courts. Dicey's misconception threw chilly shadow on
administrative law. Accordingly, Griffith and Street have observed that the
study of administrative law had to suffer a lot because of Dicey's conservative
approach. Of course, in due course of time scholars made conscious efforts to
know the real position. But even to them, the study of administrative law was
obstructed only to two aspects, viz., delegated legislation and administrative
adjudication.

It was in 1929 that the Committee on Ministries Powers headed by Lord

Donoughmore was appointed by the British Government to examine the
problems of delegated legislation and the judicial and quasi-judicial powers
exercised by the officers appointed by the ministers and to suggest effective
steps and suitable safeguards to ensure supremacy of the rule of law.

1 1911 A. C. 179 : 80 LJKB 496 : 104 L.T. 689

2

7
The Donoughmore Committee submitted its report in 1933 and made certain
recommendations with regard to better publication and control of
subordinate legislation, which were accepted by the Parliament. Accordingly,
the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946 was passed in 1947 the Crown Proceeding
Act was passed by the British Parliament making the government liable to pay
damages in cases of tortious and contractual liability of the Crown. In this way
the abandonment of the famous doctrine, "The King can do no wrong"
considerably expanded the scope of administrative law in England. In
furtherance of administrative law, Parliament passed the Tribunals and
Inquiries Act, 1958 for the purpose of better control and, supervisions of
administrative authorities and tribunals.
More than two decades earlier, Lord Denning observed, "It may truly now be
said that we have a developed system of administrative law". However, S. A.
De Smith's view’s shortcomings and lacunae, doubtless, remain and whether
the law has attained a "developed state is a matter of degree upon which
reasonable persons may differ, but no reasonable person is now likely to
define English administrative law out of existence, and its inclusion as a title
in the current edition of Halsbury's Laws of England is not totally without
significance as an indication of changing attitudes.

Administrative Law in US

Background

The United States Constitution is an offspring of the western tradition of

liberalism and republicanism. While liberalism is concerned with freedom,
republicanism is concerned with the right of the citizen to participate in
government.
Many constitutions provide for a list of fundamental rights of citizens. Some
also state that laws which are inconsistent with these rights can be nullified by
the courts. One such constitution is the US Constitution. Types of
constitutions vary world-wide but one relevant distinction is between
parliamentary and presidential constitutions. The US is a presidential system,
and the separation of powers doctrine which is enshrined in the Constitution
insures that power does not fall into the hands of a single leader or power
group.
The US Constitution is supreme in relation to any other law. Because of these
reasons, arguments based on the Constitution are typical of administrative
8
law litigation in the US. The Federal system considers the states as
independent units having defined relationships with the federal government.
Many disputes start at level of the state. But according to the supremacy
clause of the US Constitution state law is subordinate to federal law.

Development of Administrative Law in USA

The term "Administrative Law" has no authoritative definition in English. The

first book on the subject in this country, if not in English, appeared in 1893.
This was Professor Goodnow's "Comparative Administrative Law” His
definition of Administrative Law is as follows: "Administrative Law is
therefore that part of the public law which fixes the organization and
determines the competence of the administrative authorities, and indicates to
the individual remedies for the violation of his right.” In 1905, in his book on
"The Principles of the Administrative Law of the United States," Professor
Goodnow again defines Administrative Law as follows: "Administrative Law
is therefore that part of the law which fixes the organization and determines
the competence of the authorities which execute the law, and indicates to the
individual remedies for the violation of his right”
On the other hand, in 1911, in the introduction to his Cases on Administrative
Law, Professor Freund says: "The term administrative law' is sometimes
applied to all provisions of law regulating matters of public administration,
such as civil service, elections, municipal government, schools, public
revenue, or highways. In so far as such legislation involves problems of public
policy and of administrative efficiency, it concerns the student of political
science and of public administration. The chief concern of administrative law,
on the other hand, as of all other branches of civil law, is the protection of
private rights, and Its subject-matter is therefore the nature and the mode of
exercise of administrative power and the system of relief against
administrative action. This limitation of the subject seems conformable to the
prevailing usage and under standing in this country, while on the continent of
Europe all positive statutory law is treated as belonging to the province of
administrative law." Professor Freund's definition is narrower than Professor
Goodnow's, and brings the subject within the scope of a purely legal treatise.
It will therefore be accepted as defining the scope of this article.

9
Bulk of the legislations, at first, was administered without general
supervision; the central-state administrative organisation was built slowly. As
a result administrative control in the US was less bureaucratic and hence less
centralised.
In the United States the rise of administrative law is contemporaneous with
the need for governmental regulation of industry. Such a need led to the
creation in 1887 of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). In 1933 a
special committee was appointed to determine how judicial control over
administrative agencies could be exercised. Thereafter, the Administrative
Procedure Act, 1946 was passed which provided for judicial control over
administrative actions.
American administrative law developed from the operation of these different
regulatory agencies, vested with significant powers to determine, by rule or by
decision, private rights and obligations. As the regulations and orders
promulgated by these organs impinged more and more upon the community
and the bar that counseled it, the development of legal rules to ensure the
subordination of agency activities to law became of concern to jurists. During
the 1920s courses on administrative law began to be offered in law schools,
the American Bar Association set up a special committee on the subject, and it
came increasingly to occupy the attention of courts and lawyers.

10
 BIBILIOGRAPHY

Alfred C. Aman, Administrative Law in the United States -- Past, Present and
Future , Maurer Faculty , 1991.

D. G.T. Williams , Administrative Law in England: The Emergence of a New

Remedy , William & Mary Law Review, Volume 27, May 1986

Bradley, A.W. & Ewing K.D., Constitutional and Administrative Law, London &
New York: Longman, 12th Edition, 1997.

The Origins and Meaning of Administrative Law , SAGE Publications , 2015

Fasil Abebe , Notes on Administrative Law : French and English Experience ,

Mizan Law Review , Vol. 4 No.1, March 2010

11