Introduction and General Consideration Flashcards
What is administrative law?
According to Roscoe Pound, administrative law is a branch of modern law under which the executive department of the government acting in a quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial capacity, interferes with the conduct of the individual for the purpose of promoting the well-being of the community, for the protection of the public health and safety and the promotion of the public convenience and advantage.
What are the two principal subdivisions of administrative law? Explain each briefly.
The law of internal administration which treats the legal relations between the government and its administrative officers.
The law of external administration, which is concerned with the legal relations between administrative authorities and private interests.
What are the three facts which give rise to administrative agencies?
(a) Growing complexities of modern life
(b) The multiplication of the subject of governmental regulation
(c) The increased difficulty of administering the law
What are the difference between agencies and instrumentalities?
Agency of the government refers to any of the various units of the Government, including a department, bureau, office, instrumentality, or government-owned or controlled corporation, or a local government or a distinct unit therein.
Instrumentality refers to any agency of the National Government, not integrated within the department framework vested with special functions or jurisdiction by law, endowed with some if not all corporate powers, administering special funds, and enjoying operational autonomy, usually through a charter.
What is the difference of a Department, Office, and Bureau?
Department refers to an executive department created by law.
Bureau refers to any principal subdivision or unit of any department.
Office refers to any major functional unit of a department or bureau including regional offices.
What is the difference between ministerial and discretionary duty?
Ministerial duty involves the discharge of a duty that does not need the exercise of official discretion nor judgment.
Discretionary duty on the other hand, the law imposes a duty upon a public officer and gives him the right to decide how or when the duty shall be performed.
What is the rule in relation to the government not being bound by errors of public officers?
If the mistake or error done by the public officer prejudice another, and is done in bad faith or beyond the scope of his authority, he alone is liable therefor and he cannot invoke the non-suability of the state as a defense against his personal liability.
What is the rule in relation to the government not estopped by mistakes of officers?
In the performance of its government functions, the State cannot be estopped by the neglect of its agent and officers. Although the Government may generally be estopped through the affirmative acts of public officers acting within their authority, the neglect or omission of public duties will not and should not produce that effect.
What is the presumption of regularity?
Presumption of regularity are acts done in the performance of official duties and are protected by the presumption of good faith, and even mistakes committed by such public officers are not actionable as long as it is now shown that they were motivated by malice or gross negligence amounting to good faith.
What is the rule regarding the non-delegation of legislative power?
The legislature cannot delegate its power to make the law, but it can make a law to delegate a power to determine some fact or state of things upon which the law makes, or intends to make, its own action depend.
How to distinguish the power to make law and the conferring an authority or discretion as to the execution of the law?
The true distinction therefore is between the delegation of power to make the law, which necessarily involves a discretion as to what it shall be, and conferring the authority or discretion as to its execution, to be exercised under and in pursuance of the law. The first cannot be done, to the latter, no valid objection can be made.
