Procedural Fairness: Baker Vs. Canada

Procedural Fairness

Administrative law pertains to the process involved with making a decision, rather than the content of the decision itself. Fair process is at the heart of administrative law, and is present in all the branches flowing from it.

The relationship between administrative law and democracy is important to distinguish. The foundation of administrative law is “participatory rights,” which relates to the main point in democracy, being active participation. While one refers to the law and the other refers to the type of society we live in, both boil down to the idea that people have the power to be a part of he decision making process.

One of the core issues in administrative law is procedural fairness, which relates back

As the Baker vs. Canada stated, “a public officer has discretion whenever the effective limits on his power leave him free to make a choice among possible courses of action or inaction,” (Baker vs. Canada). A quick and easy way to distinguish how much discretion is available in any given situation, is by looking for the words “shall” or “may,” in the governing law; which represents no choice and a variety of options to choose from, respectively. What is important about discretion is that it is never absolute and it can not be improperly limited. Which means that public officials must act within the boundaries given to them, they cannot exceed or refuse to exercise the authority assigned to them. An important case that refers to the issue of discretion is Mount Sinai Hospital Center vs. Quebec, where the Minister of Health and Social Service promised an altered permit after the Center relocated to Montreal. After the relocation, the Minister changed his mind and denied the request, which was not a valid exercise of the Minister’s

In more familiar terms, bias is linked to being subjective rather than objectivity, having a closed mind rather than open mind, and relying on opinions rather than facts. Bias is something that happens in everyday life often; have you ever made a snap judgement of someone without knowing all the facts? If so you are guilt of being biased. Unlike these small day to day biases that occur, bias in court something that can destroy the credibility of our legal system.

The Zundel vs. Citron case explains bias as, “a state of mind that is in some way predisposed to a particular result or that is closed with regard to particular issues,” (Zundel vs. Citron). Due to the importance that bias can play in a decision, the courts have created a legal test to determine if it exists in any given situation. The test is, “what would an informed person, viewing the matter realistically and practically – and having thought the matter through –