Description

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A study of Canada’s administrative law through the groundbreaking Canada v. Vavilov case.

Canadian administrative law was bedeviled for many decades by uncertainty and confusion. In 2019, the Supreme Court of Canada sought to bring this chaos to an end in its landmark decision Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov. In A Culture of Justification, Paul Daly explains why Canada’s administrative law was uncertain and confusing and assesses the proposition that Vavilov provides a roadmap to a brighter future. Looking at administrative law from its historic origins in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, identifying the complexity of its underlying structure, and describing divergent judicial attitudes to the growing administrative state, Daly builds a framework for understanding why multiple previous reform efforts failed and why Vavilov might very well succeed. This engaging study shows readers how a newly emerged “culture of justification” allows courts and citizens to insist on the reasoned exercise of public power by the administrative state.

About the Author

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Paul Daly holds the University Research Chair in Administrative Law and Governance at the University of Ottawa. His books include A Theory of Deference in Administrative Law: Basis, Application and Scope and Understanding Administrative Law in the Common Law World.

Praise For…

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"I have been reading Paul Daly’s work for almost a decade, and this is one of the most important books he has written. It is a perfect, comprehensive account of Canadian administrative law."
— Martine Valois, Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal