This chapter considers the main ways in which disputes between individuals and public bodies are resolved outside the court system in what is widely referred to as the landscape of ‘administrative justice’. The discussions cover initial decision-making; accessing the administrative justice ‘system’; and the two pillars of administrative justice—tribunals and ombuds.
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Panels, committees, tribunals, referees, adjudicators, commissioners, and other public authorities decide many thousands of disputes each year over (for example) entitlement to benefits, or tax liability, or political asylum, or the detention of a patient in a secure hospital. The massive array of agencies reflects the great variety of benefits and burdens that twenty-first-century government assigns to people. The array had no overall organization until 2007, when Parliament transformed it into a complex system. This chapter explains the benefits of integrating these decision-making agencies in the new system. The law needs to tailor their structure, processes, and decision-making techniques to the variety of purposes they serve. And the law needs to achieve proportionate process by reconciling competing interests in legalism and informality in tribunal processes.
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Panels, committees, tribunals, referees, adjudicators, commissioners, and other public authorities decide many thousands of disputes each year over (for example) entitlement to benefits, or tax liability, or political asylum, or the detention of a patient in a secure hospital. The massive array of agencies reflects the great variety of benefits and burdens that twenty-first-century government assigns to people. The array had no overall organization until 2007, when Parliament transformed it into a complex system. This chapter explains the benefits of integrating these decision-making agencies in the new system. The law needs to tailor their structure, processes, and decision-making techniques to the variety of purposes they serve. And the law needs to achieve proportionate process, by reconciling competing interests in legalism and informality in tribunal processes.
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This chapter focuses on the administrative justice system. Administrative justice refers to the systems that enable individuals to resolve complaints, grievances, and disputes about administrative or executive decisions of public bodies, and to obtain redress. Grievance mechanisms exist to achieve redress and to ensure accountability and improved public administration. They include formal court action through judicial review, but range well beyond the courts to informal, non-legal mechanisms. Whereas a public inquiry may concern a grievance of a larger section of the public and can raise political issues, an inquiry by an Ombudsman concerns a grievance of an individual or small group, with a different fact-finding process. Meanwhile, tribunals determine rights and entitlements in disputes between citizens and state in specific areas of law, such as social security, immigration and asylum, and tax.
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This chapter focuses on the administrative justice system. Administrative justice refers to the systems that enable individuals to resolve complaints, grievances, and disputes about administrative or executive decisions of public bodies, and to obtain redress. Grievance mechanisms exist to achieve redress and to ensure accountability and improved public administration. They include formal court action through judicial review, but range well beyond the courts to informal, non-legal mechanisms. Whereas a public inquiry may concern a grievance of a larger section of the public and can raise political issues, an inquiry by an Ombudsman concerns a grievance of an individual or small group, with a different fact-finding process. Meanwhile, tribunals determine rights and entitlements in disputes between citizens and state in specific areas of law, such as social security, immigration and asylum, and tax.
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Extracts have been chosen from a wide range of historical and contemporary cases to illustrate the reasoning processes of the courts and to show how legal principles are developed. This chapter examines the rationale for giving the task of resolving disputes to statutory tribunals rather than courts. It also describes the new structure and organization for most tribunals and how they conduct dispute resolution adjudication. This technique of redress is considered alongside some methods of alternative dispute resolution. Their place in a staged approach, proportionate dispute resolution, is outlined and the possible benefit of conceiving administrative justice as a system with a focus on users is raised.
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This chapter begins by distinguishing between tribunals and inquiries. A tribunal is a permanent body that sits periodically, while an inquiry is something which is established on an ad hoc basis. Tribunals are empowered to make decisions that are binding on those parties subject to their jurisdiction; inquiries generally do not have formal decision-making powers. Tribunals are concerned with matters of fact and law, whereas inquiries are concerned with wider policy issues. The discussion then turns to the reform of the tribunal system; the former Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council; the origins of ombudsmen; the Parliamentary Commissioner; ombudsmen of devolved institutions; the Health Service Commissioner; the Local Government Commissioners; ombudsmen and the courts; and proposals for a unified Public Service Ombudsman service.
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This chapter examines the rationale for giving the task of resolving disputes to statutory tribunals rather than courts. It also describes the structure and organization for most tribunals and how they conduct dispute resolution adjudication. The hearing technique of redress is considered alongside administrative review, particularly the use of mandatory reconsideration in social security to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of dispute resolution. Their place in a staged approach, proportionate dispute resolution, is outlined and the possible benefit of conceiving administrative justice as a system with a focus on users is raised as well as some of the issues raised for users by the adoption of digitalization. An outline is given of the oversight activities conducted by the non-statutory Administrative Justice Council.
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This chapter begins by distinguishing between tribunals and inquiries. A tribunal is a permanent body that sits periodically, while an inquiry is something which is established on an ad hoc basis. Tribunals are empowered to make decisions that are binding on those parties subject to their jurisdiction; inquiries generally do not have formal decision-making powers. Tribunals are concerned with matters of fact and law, whereas inquiries are concerned with wider policy issues. The discussion then turns to the reform of the tribunal system; the former Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council; the origins of ombudsmen; the Parliamentary Commissioner; ombudsmen of devolved institutions; the Health Service Commissioner; the Local Government Commissioners; ombudsmen and the courts; and proposals for a unified Public Service Ombudsman service.
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Mark Elliott and Jason Varuhas
This chapter examines the role of the ombudsmen in the administrative justice system. It first traces the origins of the ‘public sector ombudsmen’, including the Parliamentary Ombudsman, in the UK. It then considers the need for and the functions of the ombudsmen, along with the place of the ombudsmen in a changing administrative landscape. It also discusses bodies and matters subject to investigation by the Ombudsman based on the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967, including ‘maladministration’, and the Ombudsman's discretion to investigate. Finally, the chapter reviews the conduct and consequences of the Ombudsman's investigations, paying attention to judicial review of the ombudsmen's conclusions, and institutional matters pertaining to the ombudsman system.
