Administrative Law: Why Officials Need Permission
How law tames the state's everyday power, from permits and contracts to compensation and the courts that review officials.
Try 3 questions
1. Citizens may generally do whatever the law does not forbid. Under the principle of legality, what may the administration do?
- Only what the law authorizes it to do
- Whatever its minister approves
- Whatever the law does not forbid
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Answer: Only what the law authorizes it to do
Public bodies have no inherent freedom: every power they exercise must come from a legal norm, which is the core of administrative legality.
2. Modern administrative law owes much to the case law of which institution, founded in 1799?
- The French Council of State
- The British Privy Council
- The US Supreme Court
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Answer: The French Council of State
Napoleon's Conseil d'État developed, decision by decision, many doctrines on administrative acts and state liability later borrowed across Europe and Latin America.
3. In 1885 A. V. Dicey praised England for lacking French-style 'droit administratif.' What did he believe?
- Officials should answer in ordinary courts
- Officials should be fully immune from suit
- Officials deserved their own special courts
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Answer: Officials should answer in ordinary courts
Dicey's rule of law meant officials and citizens alike answer to the ordinary courts; he later admitted England did have a growing body of administrative law.
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