Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Publication
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Regulating Impartiality In Agency Adjudication, Kent H. Barnett
Regulating Impartiality In Agency Adjudication, Kent H. Barnett
Scholarly Works
Which should prevail—the Take Care Clause of Article II or the Due Process Clause? To Justice Breyer’s chagrin, the majorities in Lucia v. SEC and Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB expressly declined to resolve whether the U.S. Constitution condones SEC administrative law judges’ and other similarly situated agency adjudicators’ current statutory protection from at-will removal. The crux of the problem is that, on one hand, senior officials may use at-will removal to pressure agency adjudicators and thereby potentially imperil the impartiality that due process requires. On the other hand, Article II limits Congress’s ability to cocoon executive officers, including potentially …
Reckoning With Adjudication's Exceptionalism Norm, Emily S. Bremer
Reckoning With Adjudication's Exceptionalism Norm, Emily S. Bremer
Journal Articles
Unlike rulemaking and judicial review, administrative adjudication is governed by a norm of exceptionalism. Agencies rarely adjudicate according to the Administrative Procedure Act’s formal adjudication provisions, and the statute has little role in defining informal adjudication or specifying its minimum procedural requirements. Due process has almost nothing to say about the matter.
The result is that there are few uniform, cross-cutting procedural requirements in adjudication, and most hearings are conducted using procedures tailored for individual agencies or programs. This Article explores the benefits and costs of adjudication’s exceptionalism norm, an analysis that implicates the familiar tension between uniformity and specialization …