STUDYING ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

Studying Administrative Law

Studying Administrative Law

Introduction

The article “Studying Administrative Law: A Methodology for, and Report on, New Empirical Research” pertains to the federal administrative law and its changing trends. The purpose of the research was to develop audience for this study which mainly includes practicing administrative lawyers. The article uses empirical study to deal with the research problem. Furthermore, the research assists in providing some significant and interesting new views pertaining to various issues. These issues consist of developments and changes in appellate decisions styles pertaining to administrative law. In addition, it also discusses changes in administrative laws since the middle of 1960s. Other issues include the patterns of remands to administrative agencies, and the impact of Supreme Court's Chevron decision. The paper will look to evaluate the article on two significant premises. First, we will evaluate the methods which the article uses, and the contributions of the research in understanding the law.

Discussion

It has been a long time since the administrative law study began. However, little attention has been given to this area by the researchers to answer the fundamental question. This question pertains to the impact of judicial review on the agency's decision making process. Even, though, the question is of extreme significance and is fundamental in the area, academic specialists seems to have neglected it quite largely. Furthermore, in spite of having limited data, there are significant views on this question which are common (Benesh, Brenner & Spaeth 2002, Pp. 119).

There are a number of writers and teachers in the administrative law field, who have been seeking tirelessly expanding and fine tuning judicial review of the agency actions, and promoting various institutional and doctrinal amendments for those objectives. They believe that courts do matters significantly when they decide that the agency has made an error or has failed to a large extent, and then the court's decision controls the subsequent behavior of the agency. The traditional description of judicial review pertaining to actions of agencies is the need to restrict agencies to their legal authority.

On the contrary, the same writers from the academic field mostly proceed that judicial control of the agency action is empirically not true. Furthermore, there are various unavoidable conditions do not allow reviewing courts to determine the agency's behavior. Such conditions include the narrow scope of legal doctrine, administrative decision making with respect to politics, judicial regard for the agency expertise, the scope of the agency judgment, and the extended nature of the agency proceedings. Therefore, the academic writers emphasize that, in the end, it is the agency which has the first and last word (Segal & Spaeth 2002, Pp. 102).

The important question is that which of these perspectives is true? According to the researchers, both views carry some truth in them. For instance, judicial reviews are significant, but they may result in delays and additional costs in order to implement the agency's actions. Moreover, it has various effects, which depends on various factors (Bergara, Richman & Spiller 2003, ...