Administrative Law Final Paper - Just Because You Don’t Win, Doesn’t Mean You Need to Re-Write the Rules

Just Because You Don’t Win, Doesn’t Mean You Need to Re-write the Rules

Administrative law is a form of public law that derives its basis from constitutional law, criminal law, and family law. It is not governed through Acts of Parliament such as the Constitution Act, however there are statutes specific to certain realms of administrative law such as labour relations, worker’s compensation, and employment insurance, among others. Administrative law is essentially the civil duty imposed on the State to act fairly in dealings with individual citizens bound within common law and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is defined as the entire set of rules relating to the organization, operation, and control of Administration (Boyd, 2011). Through a discussion of the Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v. Khosa and Singh v. University of British Columbia cases this paper will assess the standards to be met by administrative tribunals and the effect judicial review of administrative decisions has on the perseverance of justice.

Delegation is the legal machinery that is engineered to produce administrative justice, commissioned through various tribunals. Although there is considerable variance to the extent of their power, their importance is in accordance with the applicability of judicial review to their decisions. Their relevance derives from the expectations with respect to procedural rights and rights of appeal (Boyd, 2011).

Parliament has been delegated as Canada’s supreme source of authority. In the British North America Act under sections 91 and 92 concerning the division of powers, federal and provincial governments are not permitted to directly delegate power to each other, rather they must delegate power to their respective legislatures, who are permitted to commission various legislative power to administrative tribunals (Boyd, 2011).

In the case of Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v. Khosa, the appellant was convicted of criminal negligence causing death in connection with a street racing incident where he lost control of his vehicle while traveling at excessive speeds through a commercial and residential area, striking and killing a pedestrian (Supreme Court of Canada, 2009). Khosa, who was 18 at the time of the offence, was a citizen of India and had moved to Canada with his family four years prior and had been given landed immigration status. Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, S.C. 2001, c. 27 any landed immigrant who was found to be engaged in “serious criminality” was subject to a removal order. Khosa did not contest the validity of the removal order made against him, however he appealed the order seeking exceptional and discretionary relief, which was a jurisdiction legislated to the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) on threshold grounds that permitted amnesty if they felt it was warranted, based on “sufficient