The Blog will be taking a short break before resuming in 2023. We would like to thank our contributors and readers. In the meantime, please contact any of the editors if you are interested in submitting a post for next year. With our best wishes for the new year, The Editorial Team ..read more

Introduction The ambit and scope of delegated or subordinate legislation have been the subject of debate and controversy in administrative law. There are multiple perspectives that provide strong criticisms and defences of administrative rulemaking in common law jurisdictions. In this piece, I argue that that the constitutional economics framework developed by James Buchanan and Gordon ..read more

Like other common law jurisdictions, perhaps even more so than most, Australian government responses to COVID-19 involved extraordinary and wide-ranging interferences with rights and freedoms.  Litigants often invoked the common law principle of legality when challenging COVID-19 restrictions.  That is the presumption that fundamental common law rights, freedoms, immunities and principles should not be regarded ..read more

The trend towards the establishment of ombuds institutions continues unabated. Most countries have public and/or private sector ombuds institutions, which function as mechanisms for dispute resolution alternative to the courts, providing low-threshold access for citizens to seek redress for complaints against public bodies or businesses. Thus, the institution exists in numerous contextual and conceptual adaptations ..read more

The institution of the ombudsman is both universal and idiosyncratic. As we observed in the  book we recently edited and published by Hart titled ‘The Ombudsman in the Modern State’ the institution evolves as government is not static.  Globally, the institution of the ombudsman is a response to the need for government oversight. Ombudsman deal ..read more

This post continues from the previous and looks at how there are examples of challenges to the royal prerogative dating back to the reign of Elizabeth I. The Case of Mines Unlike ownership of swans, the status, power and wealth stemming from the ability to mine precious minerals and ores from the land persists to ..read more

We are accustomed to thinking of challenges to the royal prerogative as being a more recent legal development, something of the twentieth century. However, these two posts seek to establish that there there were at least two (ultimately unsuccessful) challenges to royal prerogative, dating back to the reign of Elizabeth I, involving mute swans (in ..read more

A response to reviews of Administrative Law in Action Over the last few months, Tom Poole, Ingrid Eagly and Alice Welsh have written excellent blog posts engaging with my new monograph, Immigration Administration: Administrative Law in Action. The first thing I want to do is to thank these distinguished and expert contributors for their time ..read more

Immigration administration under the microscope Administrative Law in Action: Immigration Administration homes in on the operation of the immigration department in the Home Office as a case study and examines how the law is delivered through its processes on the ground. The book takes the reader on a journey through the multiple steps of administration ..read more

The Blog will be taking a short break before resuming in 2023. We would like to thank our contributors and readers. In the meantime, please contact any of the editors if you are interested in submitting a post for next year. With our best wishes for the new year, The Editorial Team ..read more