"The core animating feature of administrative justice scholarship is the desire to understand how justice is achieved through the delivery of public services and the actions, inactions, and decision-making of administrative bodies. The study of administrative justice also encompasses the redress systems by which people can challenge administrative bodies to seek the correction of injustices. For a long time now, scholars have been interested in administrative justice, but without necessarily framing their work as such. Rather than existing under the rubric of administrative justice, much of the research undertaken has existed within sub-categories of disciplines, such as law, sociology, public policy, politics, and public administration. Consequently, although aspects of the topic have attracted rich contributions across such disciplines, administrative justice has rarely been studied or taught in a manner that integrates these areas of research more systematically. This Handbook signals a major change of approach. Drawing together a group of world-leading scholars of administrative justice from a range of disciplines, The Oxford Handbook of Administrative Justice shows how administrative justice is a vibrant, complex, and contested field that is best understood as an area of inquiry in its own right, rather than through traditional disciplinary silos"--

‘In their beautifully written book, O’Brien and Doyle tell a story of small places – where human rights and administrative justice matter most. A human rights discourse is cleverly intertwined with the debates about the relationship between the citizen and the state and between citizens themselves. O’Brien and Doyle re-imagine administrative justice with the ombud institution at its core. This book is a must read for anyone interested in a democratic vision of human rights deeply embedded within the administrative justice system.’—Naomi Creutzfeldt, University of Westminster, UK 'Doyle and O'Brien's book makes an important and timely contribution to the growing literature on administrative justice, and breaks new ground in the way that it re-imagines the field. The book is engagingly written and makes a powerful case for reform, drawing on case studies and examples, and nicely combining theory and practice. The vision the authors provide of a more potent and coherent approach to administrative justice will be a key reference point for scholars, policymakers and practitioners working in this field for years to come.'—Dr Chris Gill, Lecturer in Public Law, University of Glasgow 'This immensely readable book ambitiously and successfully re-imagines adminstrative justice as an instrument of institutional reform, public trust, social rights and political friendship. It does so by expertly weaving together many disparate motifs and threads to produce an elegant tapestry illustrating a remaking of administrative justice as a set of principles with the ombud institution at its centre.’—Carolyn Hirst, Independent Researcher and Mediator, Hirstworks /divThis book reconnects everyday justice with social rights. It rediscovers human rights in the 'small places' of housing, education, health and social care, where administrative justice touches the citizen every day, and in doing so it re-imagines administrative justice and expands its democratic reach. The institutions of everyday justice – ombuds, tribunals and mediation – rarely herald their role in human rights frameworks, and never very loudly. For the most part, human rights and administrative justice are ships that pass in the night. Drawing on design theory, the book proposes to remedy this alienation by replacing current orthodoxies, not least that of 'user focus', with more promising design principles of community, network and openness. Thus re-imagined, the future of both administrative justice and social rights is demosprudential, firmly rooted in making response to citizen grievance more democratic and embedding legal change in the broader culture./div/div

Unjust by Design describes a system in need of major restructuring. Written by a respected critic, it presents a modern theory of administrative justice fit for that purpose. It also provides detailed blueprints for the changes the author believes would be necessary if justice were to in fact assume its proper role in Canada’s administrative justice system.

In this report the Law Commission sets out conclusions from its review of administrative redress in public and private law following consultation (Law Commission consultation paper 187, 2008, ISBN 9780118404532). The aim of the Commission's review was to consider when and how individuals should be able to obtain redress against public bodies that have acted in a substandard way. The report discusses individuals' access to remedies through the courts, as well as through avenues outside the court system, such as the public sector ombudsmen. In examining court-based remedies, the Commission concludes that there are good arguments for reform but, given the level of opposition to its earlier proposals and the absence of available data on the costs of compensation paid by public bodies, work will not be taken forward on reviewing this area of the law. The report does, however, recommend that government should establish a process for collecting and publishing information on the cost of public compensation. The Commission is taking forward its review of the public sector ombudsmen, following a favourable response to its proposals. The scope of the review will be extended and include suggestions for improving citizens' access to the public sector ombudsmen, and increasing the powers of ombudsmen to refer points of law to the courts. The Commission will consult on its proposals for reform of public sector ombudsmen later in 2010 and expects to make final recommendations to government the following year.