ADMINISTRATIVE LAW Key Terminolog

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

A police state is a state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the population. A police state typically exhibits elements of totalitarianism and social control, and there is usually little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive.

The inhabitants of a police state experience restrictions on their mobility, and on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views, which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force which operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state. Robert von Mohl, who first introduced the rule of law to German jurisprudence, contrasted the Rechtsstaat ("legal" or "constitutional" state) with the aristocratic Polizeistaat ("police state").

A welfare state is a concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitabledistribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life.

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW - MEANING:

Administrative law is the body of law that governs the activities of administrative agencies of the government which comprise of rule making or legislation(when delegated to them by the Legislature as and when the need be),adjudication(to pronounce decisions while giving judgements on certain matters),implementation/enforcement of public policy. 

Nature of Administrative Law

Administrative Law is a new branch of law that deals with the powers of the Administrative authorities, the manner in which powers are exercised and the remedies which are available to the aggreived persons, when those powers are abused by administrative authorities.

The Administrative process has come to stay and it has to be accepted as a necessary evil in all progressive societies. Particularly in welfare state, where many schemes for the progress of the society are prepared and administered by the government. The execution and implementation of these programmes may adversely affect the rights of the citizens. The actual problem is to reconcile social welfare with rights of the individual subjects. The main object of the study of Administrative law is to unravel the way in which these Administrative authorities could be kept within their limits so that the discretionary powers may not be turned into

arbitrary powers.

Scope of Administrative Law : There are several branches of the science of law. The Administrative Law is a recent branch of the science of law. In the political science there are few Administrative organs. Certain functions have been allotted to these organs in the Administrative Machinery. The Administrative law deals with the structure, functions and powers of the Administrative organs. It also lays down the methods and procedures which are to be followed by them during the course of remedies which are available to the persons whose rights and other privileges are damaged by their operations. From the few lines above explaining the meaning of the Administrative law, we can notice the exact scope of this new branch of Law.

The scope of Administrative law can be narrated as under :-

The methods and procedures of these Administrative organs are also studied by this new branch of law.

It covers the nature of structure, powers and functions of all these administrative organs.

It also makes available all the relevant remedies to the persons whose rights are infringed by the operations of these organs during the course of Administration.

Why and How the Administrative Organs are to be controlled is also viewed by the Administrative law.

In this way along with the development in the Political Science and alongwith the idea of federal Administration, the separate branch of Administrative law has been developed. It is to be clearly noted that this branch of Law is exclusively restricted to the Administrative organs only. The delegated legislations are supposed to be the backbone of the Administrative law.

SIGNIFICANCE: It is very significant because if it did not exist then the very concept of having a democracy and a government to work for the people would be self defeating because then there would be no responsibility or accountability of the public officials to anybody and the administration would run arbitrarily thus creating a huge monster that would eat up the very system. There would be an upset in the balance in areas such as police law, international trade, manufacturing, environmental, taxation, broadcasting, immigration, and transportation,etc.

REASONS FOR EVOLUTION:

1) Rise in complexity warranted handling of variable by the state authorities in order to provide functioning in that area with necessary certainty and prescriptions.

2) Industrial revolution that resulted in the coming up of cities and new types of economic transactions necessitated handling of affairs by govt in order to facilitate production,supply and exchange of products and services.

3) Technological inventions and the increasing specialization has called for the increased need of specialised handling of affairs by govt officials.

4) To allow necessary flexibility in the administrative system so that the challenges arising due to social and economic factors could be addressed more adequately and efficiently.

5) To allow experimentation in order to ensure the application of best fit model in a given circumstance

6) To allow participation of people in the administrative functioning to provide the necessary authority to the administrative officials so that they can address the challenges arising due to extraordinary circumstances or emergency situations.

DICEY ON ADMINISTRATIVE LAW: Dicey supported Rule Of Law where everybody in a State everybody shall be subjected to some common law and no official irrespective of his status and authority shall be kept outside the purview of Rule Of Law. Thus,he rejected the idea of Administrative Law that was akin to Droit Administratif or that which was being practised in France and other European countries where there are seperate rules for administrative officials as he believed that such an arrangement would lead to a perpetual risk of excessive application of authority with people having no window to their grievance redressal. The reason for this is that while analysing the concept of Administrative Law Dicey was always thinking of French administrative law/rights system/Le Droit Admanistratif that existed under Napoleon's Bonaparte's rule.

Droit Adminstratif practised the system of:  a) One rule for regulating the behaviour of individuals of society and one rule for regulating the members of State and administration.

b) One court for members and individuals of the society and their private aspects and another court for members of State and administration which is the administrative Court/Tribunals and the apex of this court will be the Council D'Etat(very small division of the country in to administrative divisions that are smaller than even counties). These are distinct and not overlapping neither are superior or inferior to each other. They are equals. In case they ever overlap then the final decision will be taken by a special court constituted for this purpose.

This was done so that administrative and State officials have more autonomy in dealing with situations and contingencies that arise in execution of administrative duties and which would not be easily understood by the normal law and courts.

Thus,Dicey believed that there should not be such a separation where there is one law that governs the administrative and political officials( Administrative Law) and one that governs society and its people(civil and criminal law) and advocated the rule of law as prevalent in UK where everybody was equal in the eyes of law and only one common law governed each and every individual. But,he was heavily criticised for this later as he did not take into account that even the Crown in UK was immune from civil and criminal proceedings,thus,there was no rule of law or equality here. Also he is criticised for not taking into account the future issues that would arrive in administration due to modernisation and complexity like delegated legislation,etc. Delegated legislation was very much a part of UK administrative setup as well as the system of administrative adjudication through tribunals that was contrary to Dicey's rule of law stating only one law making body which is the legislature and it being applied everywhere universally and interpreted by the judicial courts as and when required for each and every one. So,therefore UK was practising administrative law already.

Modern day concept of rule of law has been given a very broad meaning by providing opportunities to unequal people in order to equal themselves with the others like reservation,etc. Law is created by the legislature or other legal institutions and is not to differentiate but enable unequals to become equals and the last word on the law would be that of the Independent judiciary.