Administrative Law: Delegated Legislation, Natural Justice, and Judicial Review
The statutory framework
Administrative law in Canada is about who may decide, on what authority, and how a court may check that decision. Begin with the enabling statute: a tribunal has no jurisdiction beyond what the legislature granted, and delegated legislation (regulations, rules of practice, by-laws) is valid only if it falls within the regulation-making power and is consistent with the parent Act. A regulation that conflicts with the statute is ultra vires; so is one made for an improper purpose or without the required procedural steps such as publication or consultation.
Procedural fairness
Fairness is a duty owed before a decision is made. Its content is contextual: notice of the case to meet, disclosure of the relevant material, a meaningful opportunity to respond, and an impartial decision-maker. The threshold question is whether a duty of fairness applies at all, which turns on the nature of the decision and its impact on the individual. Traps: assuming every administrative act attracts a full oral hearing (it does not); confusing the duty to give reasons with the duty to hold a hearing; and missing that bias can arise from institutional structure, not just personal conduct.
Substantive review
On judicial review a court asks whether the decision-maker acted within jurisdiction, observed fairness, and reached a defensible outcome. Reasonableness review asks whether the decision is justified, transparent, and intelligible, and bears the hallmarks of justification in light of the record. Correctness is reserved for narrow categories. Traps: treating a disagreement with the outcome as an error of law; ignoring the standard of review entirely; and forgetting that a privative clause does not shield a genuinely jurisdictional error or a breach of fairness.
Rule of thumb
Before answering any question, run three checks in order: (1) What does the statute authorise? (2) Was the process fair? (3) Is the result justifiable on the record? Most wrong options fail one of these three.