Administrative law in Britain - Essay Example

British Administrative Law is a part of British public law. It involves law pertaining to the control and authority of British departmental agencies or those agencies that are given constitutional power by the administration (Leyland and Anthony, 2008, 45) There is great popularity of such law reforms in most of the countries, however, they have been extensively criticised too. Main constituents of British Administrative Law are Ombudsmen, Tribunals, Judicial review and Freedom of Information.

Ombudsman According to the Administrative law post of Ombudsman is connected to the Parliament of Westminster and some other posts at the Parliament of Scotland, some of the government institutions and Welsh Assembly. The main responsibility of Ombudsman is to inspect problems of malpractices of administration. Tribunals This constituent of British Administrative Law includes numbers of local public bodies, which are also called non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs). Judicial review This content of British administrative law includes supervision of implementation of general public power by the Administrative Courts.

If someone feels that an act of a government body, for instance his/ her local council or a constitutional court, is against the law, or it has dishonoured his/her civil rights, they may register a complaint at the Administrative Court (which is a branch of High Court) for legal reassessment of the decision and get their problem solved or perhaps take compensation. (Leyland and Anthony, 2008, 35) . Nevertheless, the basic aim and objective of both these Acts is well indistinguishable – same sort of public bodies that are included in Britain, Northern Ireland and Wales are also included in Scotland Act. . (Leyland and Anthony, 2008, 42) Moreover, its basic terms and conditions are very closed to each other, despite the fact that the Freedom of Information Act of Scotland is a little stronger than English Act in support of disclosing information.

But Freedom of Information Act 2000 is not applicable for public bodies in the foreign territories. (Barnett, 2004, 221) The former Prime Minister Tony Blair who actually brought main idea of the Freedom of Information Act, showed his disappointed from the Act afterwards. According to him, this Act obstructs the capacity of government officials to act under a sensible level of privacy. Implementation of the Administrative Law is seen as a major constitutional change that has been implemented in the course of past few years.

Numbers of changes have also taken place within British House of Commons too, like pre-legislative trials are now given much more importance, select committees have been made much stronger, change in work hours etc. This is not possible to do justice to all the reforms, however this is a major thing that it is an obligation for the British Prime Minister to present himself at the Liaison Select Committee of the House two times in every year to be questioned about any subject whatsoever. Critics have shown their reservations on the commitment to this sort of well-planned constitutional programme.

UK Administrative and Constitutional Law have remarkably changed since year 1997. (Barnett, 2004, 225) There are several public bodies too, whose resolutions can also be