REGULATORY AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

Regulatory And Administrative Law



Regulatory And Administrative Law

Administrative Law

Administrative law is the body of law that governs the activities of administrative agencies of government. Government agency action can include rulemaking, adjudication, or the enforcement of a specific regulatory agenda. Administrative law is considered a branch of public law. As a body of law, administrative law deals with the decision-making of administrative units of government (e.g., tribunals, boards or commissions) that are part of a national regulatory scheme in such areas as police law, international trade, manufacturing, the environment, taxation, broadcasting, immigration and transport. Administrative law expanded greatly during the twentieth century, as legislative bodies worldwide created more government agencies to regulate the increasingly complex social, economic and political spheres of human interaction.

Civil law countries often have specialized courts, administrative courts, that review these decisions. The plurality of administrative decisions contested in administrative courts are related to taxation.

In the United States, many government agencies are organized under the executive branch of government, although a few are part of the judicial or legislative branches.

In the federal government, the executive branch, led by the president, controls the federal executive departments, which are led by secretaries who are members of the United States Cabinet. The many important independent agencies of the United States government created by statutes enacted by Congress exist outside of the federal executive departments but are still part of the executive branch.

Congress has also created some special judicial bodies known as Article I tribunals to handle some areas of administrative law.

The actions of executive agencies and independent agencies are the main focus of American administrative law. In response to the rapid creation of new independent agencies in the early twentieth century (see discussion below), Congress enacted the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in 1946. Many of the independent agencies operate as miniature versions[citation needed] of the tripartite federal government, with the authority to "legislate" (through rulemaking; see Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations), "adjudicate" (through administrative hearings), and to "execute" administrative goals (through agency enforcement personnel). Because the United States Constitution sets no limits on this tripartite authority of administrative agencies, Congress enacted the APA to establish fair administrative law procedures to comply with the constitutional requirements of due process.

United States administrative law encompasses a number of statutes and cases which define the extent of the powers and responsibilities held by administrative agencies of the United States Government. The executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. federal government cannot always directly perform their constitutional responsibilities. Specialized powers are therefore delegated to an agency, board, or commission. These administrative governmental bodies oversee and monitor activities in complex areas, such as commercial aviation, medical device manufacturing, and securities markets.

Justice Breyer defines administrative law in four parts. Namely, the legal rules and principles that:

(1) define the authority and structure of administrative agencies;

(2) specify the procedural formalities employed by agencies;

(3) determine the validity of agency decisions; and

(4) define the role of reviewing courts and other governmental entities in ...