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Designing Administrative Justice: Draft, Lorne Sossin

All Papers

This study explores the adaptation of design thinking to administrative justice. Design thinking – or human centred design – approaches services and products from the perspective of the user. This perspective too often is missing in the design of administrative tribunals, most of which have been developed top-down to serve the needs of a particular policy interest of the Government of the day.

This paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, I review the development of design thinking in the context of legal services and legal organizations. In the second part, I explore the implications of this …

Re-Thinking Executive Control Of And Accountability For The Agency, Benedict Sheehy, Don Feaver

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The organization of many Western governments has undergone dramatic structural and procedural changes over the past century. A large portion of public administration previously done by departments within a more centralized structure of government has been shifted to administrative units, often referred to as “agencies” that fall outside the constitutional core—an “agencified” model. This article investigates the historical contexts and legal developments associated with these changes and illuminates how “agencification” has altered the balance between executive control powers and executive accountability obligations. It examines how the organizational changes have been addressed in both the responsible government models of the United …

Pursuing A Reconciliatory Administrative Law: Aboriginal Consultation And The National Energy Board, Matthew J. Hodgson

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Environmental assessment within the process of regulatory review is recognized as the preferred means for carrying out the duty to consult and accommodate Aboriginal rights in administrative decisions over proposed resource development. Recent evidence suggests that integrating the duty to consult into National Energy Board (NEB) proceedings and subsuming the law of Aboriginal consultation under principles of administrative justice have not advanced the goal of reconciliation. This article considers whether the statutory mandate of the National Energy Board requires it to have sufficient regard to Aboriginal rights in a manner consistent with the adjudication of constitutional issues in administrative law. …

Unappealing: An Assessment Of The Limits On Appeal Rights In Canada's New Refugee Determination System, Angus Gavin Grant, Sean Rehaag

Articles & Book Chapters

Canada’s refugee determination system was revised in 2012. One key feature of the new process is a quasi-judicial administrative appeal, on matters of both fact and law, at the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). Under the new process, however, many claimants are denied access to the RAD.

This article assesses these limits on access to the RAD, drawing mostly on quantitative data obtained from the IRB and Citizenship and Immigration Canada through access to information requests. Our aim is to provide evidence-based analysis and recommendations for reform. Essentially, our conclusions are that the bars …