Administrative Justice and Empirical Legal Research

Abstract

For many years, most studies on administrative justice were written from a doctrinal legal perspective. More recently, however, administrative justice has also become the subject of a growing body of empirical research. This chapter provides an overview of empirical administrative justice research in three fields: administrative decision-making, redress mechanisms, and the impact of redress mechanisms on administrative practice. In legal doctrine, ‘legal instrumentalism’ has become central to thinking about administrative justice. However, the findings from empirical research provide little support for the underlying assumptions of instrumentalism. In this way, empirical legal research forces us to rethink the relationship between administrative law and administrative justice. The chapter concludes that while in some cases law and legal institutions may be an effective instrument to promote administrative justice in other cases, the direct impact of law is severely limited and law may even have a negative effect on the quality of administrative justice.

The immigrant versus the state: The marginal contribution of tribunal judges to administrative justice

“…Administrative justice is currently a recognised field of study and refers to the processes governments use to make determinations about individual rights and entitlements, and the mechanisms in place to challenge these decisions (Hertogh et al, 2022).…”

Comparative administrative law in Europe: State-of-the-art overview and research agenda

“…Also the Oxford Handbook of Administrative Justice deserves a special mention, as it contains a comprehensive set of reflections on the topic, although these are not always comparative in nature. 140 Finally, although the focus of this contribution is on Europe, it should be noted that increasingly more comparative work on judicial review of administrative action is carried out to encompass non-European jurisdictions. 141 sustainable level of healthy workers, the growing inequality among a population with very diverse needs and means, growing social injustice, threats to physical security and social wellbeing, digitalization and AI used in the administrative realm and the need for strengthening administrative coordination across countries and regions and across policy areas (e.g., taxation, social security, health care).…”

Law and Legitimacy in Administrative Justice Research

“…There is some evidence of a conventional approach within the study of administrative justice. Studies of the legal consciousness of politicians and senior officials (Cooper, 1995), or of street-level bureaucrats (Hertogh, 2010) operate in this vein. But there is scope for much more.…”