Tribunal Reform and Administrative Justice

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

This chapter considers the place of tribunals within the broader notion of ‘administrative justice’. Many common law jurisdictions saw an apparent ‘rise’ of administrative justice corresponding with systemic tribunal reforms, including amalgamation, and the creation of oversight bodies, alongside, in some cases, the codification of administrative law and rights to administrative justice. Tribunals have since been challenged by austerity (impacting users, public bodies and tribunal budgets), a rise in other administrative review and redress mechanisms, declining systematic oversight, coupled with loss of political support for the notion of ‘holistic’ administrative justice, and digitalisation. This chapter focuses on common cross-cutting issues in tribunal reform, including amalgamation/rationalisation, ‘creeping legalism’, tribunals and multi-level governance, the relationship between tribunals and administrative law, oversight, and digitalisation. We conclude that conceptions or models of administrative justice that focus only on institutional structures or modes of adjudication may be of decreasing relevance, whereas those that focus on underpinning lived experiences of uses and other actors, values, principles, and administrative law doctrines, will be more instructive to understanding tribunal developments.

Keywords

  • Tribunals administrative justice reforms
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAdministrative Tribunals in the Common Law World
EditorsStephen Thomson, Matthew Groves, Gregg Weeks
Place of PublicationOxford
PublisherBloomsbury
Number of pages29
ISBN (print)9781509966905
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 11 Apr 2024
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