McGILL LAW JOURNAL
Volume 20
Montreal
1974
Number 2
Judicial Review: How Much Do We Need ?*
P.W. Hoggt
Introduction
For some years now in Canada the tide has been running strong-
ly in favour of increased judicial review of official decisions. It is
seen most clearly in the McRuer Report,’ whose recommendations
for increased judicial review were welcomed by the press and en-
acted by the Ontario legislature.2 It is also evident in the new Federal
Court Act 8 which increases the scope of judicial review of federal
agencies. The assumption is that judicial review is a good thing,
and that if we have more of it we shall be better off. There are two
propositions involved in this, and the second does not follow logi-
cally from the first. Only if we examine why judicial review is a
good thing will we be in a position to determine how much we
need: where the reason ends, there the rule should also end. I have
just completed a study of all the administrative law cases decided
in the Supreme Court of Canada from 1949 to the present,4 and
*A public lecture delivered at the Osgoode Hall Law School of York
University on Thursday, 16 November 1972, as part of a lecture series on the
theme of “The Individual and the Bureaucracy”.
t Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University.
‘Royal Commission Inquiry into Civil Rights (1968-1971), Queen’s Printer,
2 The Judicial Review Procedure Act, 1971, S.O. 1971, cA8 defines the procedure
Toronto.
for and scope of review of the agencies.
3 Federal Court Act, S.C. 1970, c.1.
4 Hogg, The Supreme Court of Canada and Administrative Law, 1949-1971,
(1973) 11 Osgoode Hall L.J. 187.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 20
will draw on the results of that study to develop the argument which
follows.
There is nothing intrinsically good about judicial review –
or
indeed any other kind of review. On the contrary a review always
means that a question decided once has to be decided again. It is a
duplication of effort which involves extra expense and extra delay’
and should not be undertaken unless there is a strong likelihood of
improvement in the quality of decision. When is there a strong like-
lihood of improvement in the quality of decision? And how do we
measure the “quality” of a decision? It would be idle to expect defini-
tive answers to these questions, but a first step in seeking the
answers must be to consider the Court’s and the Agency’s qualifi-
cations to decide.
The Agency’s Qualifications
There are many kinds of agencies doing a great variety of tasks.
The reason why the Legislature assigns a particular task to a
particular agency is usually a matter for speculation. And yet the
assignment of decision-making power in a regulated area to an
agency (or official) offers some or all of the following advantages.
First of all, agencies generally provide greater specialization and
expertise. A body with relatively continuous experience with the
regulated area will acquire more knowledge and understanding of
it than would be possessed by a court. Secondly, an impetus is given
to greater innovation. If the regulatory scheme is new or experi-
mental, an agency may be given a broad area of discretion to
develop new policies and remedies; a court would normally be
unsuited to this kind of policy innovation. Thirdly, an agency
may be allowed more initiative. It may be given power to initiate
proceedings, to undertake its own investigations, to do research and
to feed information and recommendations back to the government
or to other agencies. A court traditionally plays a less active role:
it relies on the parties to initiate the process of adjudication and
to adduce all relevant information; it is preoccupied with the dispo-
sition of the single case before it; and it makes no systematic effort
to synthesise its experience and make it available to legislators or
anyone else. Fourthly, an active agency may help to close the flood-
gates of litigation before the courts. If adjudication is required
frequently, the volume of cases may cast an unacceptable burden
5 See Abel, Appeals against Administrative Decisions, (1962) 5 Can.Pub.
Admin. 65, 65.
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JUDICIAL REVIEW: HOW MUCH DO WE NEED?
on the court system, requiring a specialised tribunal. Fifthly, agen.
cies are more economical. Adjudication by an agency is likely to be
quicker, less formal and therefore somewhat less expensive than
adjudication by a court
These advantages of the Agency as a decision-maker suggest that
the scope of judicial review should be narrow. The Agency will be
better qualified than the Court to decide most questions coming
before it. In most cases there is little likelihood that the Court will
be able to improve upon the Agency’s decision. Therefore the desir-
ability of bringing a controversy to a final conclusion should dic-
tate that review be unavailable.
The Decision in Metropolitan Life
The 1970 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Metropol-
itan Life Insurance Co. v. International Union of Operating Engi-
neers 1 is a good example of a case where judicial review was inappro-
priate. The Ontario Labour Relations Board had the power to certi-
fy a union as the bargaining agent of the employees where the Board
was “satisfied that more than 55 per cent of the employees in the
bargaining unit are members of the trade union”. The Board, acting
under this power, certified the International Union of Operating En-
gineers as the bargaining agent for the maintenance workers in Me-
tropolitan Life’s Ottawa office. The Board acted on the basis of
uncontradicted evidence that more than 55 per cent of the employees
had applied for membership in the union, had paid an initiation fee
and had been accepted by the union as members. The difficulty in
the case was caused by the fact that the union’s constitution provid-
ed only for membership by operating engineers and the employees
in this bargaining unit were maintenance workers. The Supreme
Court relied on this fact to quash the decision of the Board. The
Court reasoned that the Board had no power of certification unless
it was satisfied that the maintenance workers were “members” of
the union. A maintenance worker could not be a “member” because
he did not fulfil the eligibility requirements of the union constitu-
tion. Therefore the Board had no power to certify the union, and
its decision was void.
61 appreciate, of course, that agency proceedings are not always informal,
quick and cheap; and that court proceedings are not always formal, slow and
expensive.
7 [1970] S.C.R. 425. I have discussed this case in a previous article, The
Jurisdictional Fact Doctrine in the Supreme Court of Canada, (1971) 9 Osgoode
Hall L.J. 203, 212.
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The Metropolitan Life case is an illustration of what is some-
times called the “jurisdictional fact doctrine”. According to this doc-
trine, once a “fact” found by an Agency has been classified by the
Court as jurisdictional, a wrong finding by the Agency makes its
decision invalid. The Agency is then acting outside the powers
conferred upon it. In this case the existence of the requisite percent-
age of “members” was classified as jurisdictional. Therefore the
Board’s wrong determination that maintenance workers could be
“members” made its decision void. I have criticized the jurisdic-
tional fact doctrine elsewhere 8 and do not propose to go over the
same ground again. It suffices to say that there is nothing inevita-
ble about the doctrine. The statute requires the Board to make
a finding whether or not the requisite percentage of members exists
before it can exercise its powers. The only issue is whether the
Board’s opinion should be treated as authoritative, or whether the
Court should treat its own opinion as the authoritative one.
If one considers the qualifications of the Board to decide the
question, it is clear that its decision is likely to be the better
one. The Ontario legislature had established by statute a frame-
work for collective bargaining which required that certain recur-
ring questions be adjudicated. One of these was the certification of
unions as bargaining agents for groups of employees. This adjudi-
catory function, which could have been given to the ordinary courts,
was given instead to an administrative agency. That agency acquired
a specialized and expert knowledge of the questions of labour
relations which regularly came before it. One such question was
whether employees who did not satisfy the eligibility requirements
of a union constitution could be treated as “members” of that union
for certification purposes. The Board had encounted this prob-
lem before and had evolved a policy to meet it. It had decided to
formulate and apply a uniform criterion of membership for certifi-
cation purposes: if the evidence indicated that an employee had
applied for membership in the union and had paid an initiation fee,
and that the union would in fact accord him all the rights and privi-
leges of membership, then the Board’s policy was to treat that em-
ployee as a “member” of the union. In other words the Board had
deliberately decided not to accept the requirements of the union
constitution as controlling, but to apply its own uniform rule. There
seem to have been two main reasons for the Board’s adoption of
a uniform rule. The first was its view that every employee who was
claimed as a member by a union seeking certification should have
8 (1971) 9 Osgoode Hall L.J. 203, 209-217.
1974]
JUDICIAL REVIEW: HOW MUCH DO WE NEED?
made a financial sacrifice in additiou to merely signing an applica-
tion card. If a union in its constitution were free to abolish its
initiation fee for the purpose of an organizational drive, then its
list of “members” might lack credibility, and the union might have
an unfair advantage over a competing union which did require an
initiation fee. The second reason for a uniform rule was that the
unions for a number of reasons find it difficult to keep the member-
ship qualifications in their constitutions up-to-date with new work
patterns, new job classifications and even with their own organiza-
tional initiatives. To insist on amendment of the union constitution
so as to accord with its actual organizational activity would have
involved serious delays in certification and therefore in collective
bargaining. These reasons led the Labour Board to develop the uni-
form standard of membership and to certify the union in Metropol-
itan Life.” No doubt there is room for argument about the wisdom
of the rule, but it is doubtful if anyone unversed in labour relations
would have much to contribute to the argument. When the court
rushes in to substitute its legalistic solution for the Board’s prag-
matic one, it is seriously disturbing the expectations and practices
of those regulated by the Labour Relations Act. The Board’s view
is likely to be the better one; the less well-informed court should
have deferred to it.10 In fact the Supreme Court’s decision in Metro-
politan Life was immediately and retrospectively corrected by the
legislature.1 ‘ The total cost of review in Metropolitan Life was high
indeed.
The Court’s Qualifications
What special qualifications does a Court then have? One obvious
one is that its judges are lawyers. If one concentrates on this quali-
fication it is easy to conclude that the Court should always have
the power to review questions of law which come before the Agency.
This is a theory which surfaces from time to time in the United
States. But how are questions of “law” to be identified? It is a
truism among administrative lawyers that “law”, “fact” and “poli-
9See O.L.R.B. Monthly Report, August 1967, 437 for the decision of the
Board; and see Norwood, Comment, (1970) 28 U. of T.Fac.L.R. 109 for dis-
cussion.
10The commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision in Metropolitan Life
has generally been critical: (1970) 28 U. of T.Fac.L.R. 109 (Norwood); (1971)
9 Osgoode Hall L.J. 1, 30 (Weiler); (1971) 9 Osgoode Hall L.J. 203, 212 (Hogg);
(1971) 49 Can. Bar Rev. 365 (Lyon).
11 S.O. 1970, c.3, ss.1, 2.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
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cy” are inextricably bound up together in the process of decision-
making. A judicial power to review questions of law will leave few
agency decisions invulnerable to attack. In Canadian administrative
law at present there is no general judicial power to review ques-
tions of law.12 The issue for the reviewing court is not whether an
error of law has been made, but whether the Agency has acted
within its powers. This leaves many problems, as we shall see, but
the fact-law dichotomy is no improvement.13 Unfortunately, the new
Federal Court Act and the new Ontario Judicial Review Procedure
Act have both extended the judicial power to review for error of
law,14 so that our courts will be increasingly invited to review deci-
sions which they should leave well alone.
By way of parenthesis it is perhaps worth adding that I cer-
tainly would not accept the American doctrine that agency findings
of fact are reviewable to see if they are supported by “substantial
evidence” on the whole record.15 This formula allows the Court to
examine and weigh the evidence before the Agency. It permits a
costly re-examination of all findings of fact, and by a Court which
has not the same specialised knowledge and understanding as the
Agency. The analogy to a review of a jury’s findings, which is often
made by American judges and writers, 6 seems to me to be inapt
because administrative agencies are rarely ad hoc amateur bodies
comparable to a jury. I am therefore sorry that the new Federal
Court of Appeal has been given the power to review findings of
12 The present relevance to Canadian law of the distinction between “law”
and “fact” is that certiorari will lie for error within jurisdiction if the error
appears on the face of the record and is one of “law”. In Ontario this anom-
alous ground of review has been extended to the “application for judicial
review”: The Judicial Review Procedure Act, 1971, S.O. 1971, c.48, s.2(2).
Statutory appeals are occasionally granted from an agency to the courts for
error of “law”. The new Federal Court of Appeal has been given power to
review for error of “law”: Federal Court Act, S.C. 1970, c.1, s28.
13Wade in Anglo-American Administrative Law: More Reflections, (1966)
82 L.Q.R. 226 argues that the U.S. law is better than the English law. He states
that the “substantial evidence” rule for questions of fact and the “rational
basis” rule for questions of law are so similar that it is unnecessary for the
U.S. courts to characterize questions as being of “fact” or “law”. But, as he
admits, the courts still often assert a power of full review of findings of law,
even if there is a “rational basis” for the agency’s finding. The rational basis
test is not firmly established, and Jaffe for one rejects it: Jaffe, Judicial
Control of Administrative Action (1965), 576; and see f.n.35, infra.
14 See supra, f.n.12.
15 Jaffe, supra, f.n. 13, ch. 15; Davis, IV Administrative Law Treatise (1958),
ch. 29.
10 See Jaffe, supra, f.n.13, 616.
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JUDICIAL REVIEW: HOW MUCH DO WE NEED?
fact in language which bears a close resemblance to the American
substantial evidence rule,’1 and that there is a provision in the new
Ontario Judicial Review Procedure Act which could develop into a
similar power.’8
Albert S. Abel makes an appealing argument. He would not
support full review of all questions of law coming before an agency.
He agrees that the Court should leave to the Agency decisions which
turn on technical terms or which concern matters of policy. But he
reasons from the premise that judges are lawyers to the conclusion
that the task of interpreting statutory language should rest finally
with the courts “where the statutory terms by themselves or in their
context are standard legal terms common to many acts or where they
are everyday popular terms with no colour of special usage”.’ 9
The difficulty with this formulation is that it seems to allow the
Court to be the sole judge of when statutory language is a “standard
legal term” or an “everyday popular term”. The meaning of statutory
language (or any language for that matter) always depends upon
its context. It will be rare indeed to find a term in a statute which
does not draw some colour from the purposes and policies of the
statute of which it is a part. Judges who are not familiar with those
purposes and policies or with the expectations of those familiar
with the field of regulation may give a term its “standard legal
meaning” or its “everyday popular meaning” in ignorance of the
technical or policy implications of their decision. The field of labour
law is replete with examples of judges assigning meanings to what
they believed were everyday or standard legal terms, and thereby
disturbing the longstanding and rational expectations of those
working in the field 0
The Metropolitan Life case is a good example of this. The mis-
leading term “jurisdictional fact” 21 should not conceal that what
was in issue in that case was the meaning of the statutory phrase
“members of the trade union”. This looks like a phrase which a
lawyer is eminently well-qualified to define by the application of
17Federat Court Act, S.C. 1970, c.1, s28(1)(c). The Court may review a
decision based on “an erroneous finding of fact that it made in a perverse
or capricious manner or without regard for the material before it”.
18 S.O. 1971, cA8, sl2(3).
19 Abel, supra, f.n.5, 74.
20 There has been a great deal of criticism of the role of the courts in
reviewing the decisions of labour relations boards. Cf. Weiler, The ‘Slippery
Slope’ of Judicial Intervention, (1971)
9 Osgoode Hall L.J. 1. I am much
indebted to this excellent study.
21 For criticism of the term, see Hogg, (1971) 9 Osgoode Hall L.J. 203, 215.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
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ordinary legal techniques. However, if one is to judge by the speedy
legislative reaction and the critical commentary, the lawyer’s solution
turned out to be inappropriate to what was essentially a problem of
labour relations policy. The same kind of point may be made about
other cases where the court has used the “jurisdictional fact doc-
trine” as the basis for judicial review.2 The question whether Bar-
bara Jarvis is a “person” looks quite easy – until it is seen to be a
question about the scope and policy of labour relations regulation.2
3
The question whether Kenneth Bell’s flat is a “self-contained dwell-
ing unit” looks like the meat and drink of any competent lawyer –
until it is seen as depending upon the purposes and policies of an
anti-discrimination law.24 It is no part of my thesis that the Court
is incapable of giving sensible answers to these questions. If there
were no Agency the Court would have to give the answers. But when
there is an Agency it seems only realistic to recognize that the
questions have a component of technicality and policy which lies
beneath their surface, and which the Agency is better equipped than
the Court to identify, to evaluate and to consider in its decision.
General Values
Is there then any room whatsoever for judicial review? My
answer is yes, and it stems from the premise that the judges are not
merely lawyers but generalists. There are dangers in allowing a
specialist agency to operate completely free from review. The very
qualities which make the Agency well suited to determine questions
within its area of specialization may lead it to overlook or under-
estimate general values which are fundamental to the legal order
as a whole. The generalist Court is ideally suited to check the special-
ist Agency at the point where these general values are threatened.
First and foremost among these general values are those which
are associated with the Canadian commitment to a democracy based
22 There are a few cases which may be capable of analysis in Abel’s terms,
e.g., The Queen v. Leong Ba Chai, [1954] S.C.R. 10; see also Jaffe, Judicial
Control of Administrative Action (1965), 631.
23 Jarvis v. Associated Medical Services Inc., [1964] S.C.R. 497.
24Bell v. Ontario Human Rights Commission, [1971] S.C.R. 756; see also
Toronto Newspaper Guild v. Globe Printing Co., [1953] 2 S.C.R. “18; Labour
Relations Board (B.C.) v. Canada Safeway Ltd., [1953] 2 S.C.R. 46; Commission
des Relations Ouvrires de Quebec v. Burlington Mills Hosiery Co. of Canada
Ltd., [1964] S.C.R. 342; Jarvis v. Associated Medical Services Inc., [1964] S.C.R.
497; Galloway Lumber Co. Ltd. v. Labour Relations Board (B.C.), [1965]
S.C.R. 222.
1974]
JUDICIAL REVIEW: HOW MUCH DO WE NEED?
on the English parliamentary system. The most obvious feature of a
democracy is that its laws are made by legislatures whose members
are elected. If officials were free to act outside the authority of those
laws, the democratic principle would be subverted. The principle
that official action must be authorized by law in order to be valid
is perhaps the kernel of Dicey’s much criticized “rule of law”.
Regarded simply as a requirement of validity it is no special cause
for pride, since no civilized community would accept as valid what-
ever was done by an official or whatever bore the trappings of an
official act. In a democratic country the principle of validity has
special significance, since the laws which authorize official action
must be made by a freely elected legislature. Every exercise of
official power must therefore have a democratic root. In countries
which have inherited the English common law it has fallen to the
Court to apply the principle of validity, and thereby insist upon the
democratic character of the government.
The role of the courts as “guarantors of the integrity of the legal
system” 25 may be illustrated by a well-known trilogy of civil actions
brought by Jehovah’s Witnesses in Quebec during the 1950’s. In
Chaput v. Romain 26 police had broken up an assembly of Jehovah’s
Witnesses who were meeting peacefully in a private house. In Lamb
v. Benoit ‘7 police had arrested a Jehovah’s Witness who was distri-
buting pamphlets on a street corner, held her in custody for a
weekend, and then laid charges which proved to be without founda-
tion. In Roncarelli v. Duplessis 2s the Premier of Quebec had ordered
the cancellation of restaurateur Roncarelli’s liquor licence because
he was a Jehovah’s Witness who had made a practice of acting as
bondsman for the numerous Jehovah’s Witnesses who were arrested
for distributing their literature in breach of municipal by-laws. In
each case the Supreme Court of Canada held that the official deci-
sion complained of was made without any legal authority, and award-
ed damages against the defendant officials. The officials were not
allowed to shelter behind the trappings of their office because their
decisions did not satisfy the principle of validity: they were not
authorized by any statute.
It is clear that Canadians could not accept a legal system in which
there was no avenue of redress for Roncarelli and his fellow Wit-
nesses. Furthermore, it is not easy to see how any tribunal other
25 Jaffe, supra, f.n.13, 589.
26 [1955] S.C.R. 834.
27 [1959] S.C.R. 321.
28 [1959] S.C.R. 121.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
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than the ordinary courts would be as well equipped to adjudicate
disputes of this kind between the individual and the State or its
officials. The ordinary courts offer as good an assurance of neutrality
as is reasonable to expect in an imperfect world. The judges are
still human, of course,2 9 but they are immeasurably strengthened by
their high standing in the community, their security of tenure and
their long tradition of independence.
The experience of France shows that the ordinary courts could
be replaced by a specialist tribunal for the purpose of deciding
controversies between the citizen and the State. However, the French
Conseil d’Etat has evolved slowly over a period of more than a
century and a half. An attempt to establish it in one stroke in a
country with quite different constitutional arrangements and tradi-
tions would be likely to fail. The risk is that a more specialized
tribunal would lack the detachment from the administrative process
which in my judgment is appropriate to judicial review. On the one
hand, it might acquire so much sympathy for the administrative
point of view as to lose sight of competing democratic or civil
libertarian values. On the other hand, it might acquire so much
confidence in its own expertise as to lose sight of legitimate official
claims to autonomy and finality. The kind of limited review which
can appropriately be provided by a generalist court is, to my mind,
exactly what is required.
Kenneth Culp Davis tells us that judicial review should depend
upon the “comparative qualifications” of Court and Agency,30 and
Albert S. Abel states that “the fittest should finally decide” 1 This
approach to judicial review throws much light in dark places, as I
hope my earlier discussion of the jurisdicitional fact doctrine has
shown. But it is incomplete. If the Agency decides a matter which
has not been assigned to it, the Court should strike down the pur-
29 In each of the three cases the official decision was upheld in the highest
Quebec court; and in two of the three cases the Supreme Court of Canada was
divided, with the French-Canadian members in dissent. In Lamb v. Benoit,
[1959] S.C.R. 321 Taschereau, Fauteux and Abbott,TJ. dissented on the basis
that the action had been brought outside a six-month limitation period. In
Roncarelli v. Duplessis, [1959] S.C.R. 121 Taschereau and FauteuxTJ. again
dissented on the similar ground that a statutory notice had not been given to
the defendant one month before the issuance of the writ; Cartwright,J. also
dissented, but on a different point. Chaput v. Romain, [1955] S.C.R. 834 was a
unanimous decision in which Taschereau and Fauteux,JJ. participated; there
were similar privative provisions there too, but they were held unavailing.
30 1V Davis, supra, f.n.15, s.28.21.
31 Abel, (1962) 5 Can.Pub.Admin. 65, 72.
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JUDICIAL REVIEW: HOW MUCH DO WE NEED?
ported decision. One may describe this as an application of the
principle of validity, or of legislative supremacy, or of the “rule of
law”, but however described it is basic to our constitutional law and
will not and should not change. It is not enough to say that the
Agency was well qualified to make the decision; it must also be
legally authorized to do so.
Interpreting the Empowering Statute
In the three Jehovah’s Witnesses cases the defendants were unable
to point to any statute which authorized their actions. In most cases,
however, the official is able to rely on an enabling statute which
gives him power to do some things, and the question is whether the
statute gives him power to do the very thing which is complained of.
How is the Court to handle these cases, where there is a genuine
question of statutory interpretation concerning whether the Agency
was authorized to do what it did? The principle of validity (or of
legislative supremacy or rule of law) seems to require that the Court
interpret the empowering statute to decide whether or not the
Agency has acted within its legislative mandate. But the principle of
comparative qualifications, which led me to condemn the decision
in Metropolitan Life, seems to insist that the Court accept the
Agency’s interpretation of its own legislative mandate. Can one not,
after all, assume that the Agency will be better informed than the
Court of the purposes and policies of its own statute?
Obviously a compromise must be worked out between the com-
peting claims of the principle of validity and the principle of com-
parative qualifications. So far as possible the ultimate decision
should be both valid and well-informed. And, to introduce a new
element into the argument, the ultimate decision should also reflect
civil libertarian values basic to our legal order. Is there any way in
which this can be accomplished? Again, I believe that it can, and I
shall try to demonstrate this with examples of the kind of cases in
which I believe judicial review is appropriate.
The first example is Beatty v. Kozak,3 2 decided in the Supreme
Court of Canada in 1958. Saskatchewan’s Mental Hygiene Act
included a power to arrest a person who was “apparently mentally
ill” where the person was “conducting himself in a manner which
in a normal person would be disorderly”. The plaintiff in Beatty v.
Kozak was arrested while working peacefully in her office, and was
3 [1958] S.C.R. 177.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
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then detained for 44 days. She sued the policeman and police matron
who had made the arrest for damages for false imprisonment. The
majority of the Supreme Court of Canada held that the plaintiff
was entitled to damages. Since she was not, at the time of her arrest,
“conducting [herself] in a manner which in a normal person would
be disorderly”, it followed that the statutory power of arrest had
not arisen. Therefore the decision to arrest her was unauthorized by
the statute and was invalid.
The decision in Beatty v. Kozak, as described, may appear to
have been inevitable. That it was not so is made clear by the dissent
of Rand,J., who did not content himself with a literal reading of
the statutory language. He pointed out that the language did not
have to be read as confined to disorderly conduct at the time of the
arrest, but could extend to “past persistent disorderly conduct”.3
Rand,J. did not go so far as to decide that he agreed with that
interpretation. What he did decide was that he would defer to the
official view. In essence he held that when a statutory provision will
reasonably bear the meaning which its administrator has placed
upon it, the Court should not substitute a different meaning. 4
To ask, as Rand,I. did, whether a statutory power will reason-
ably bear the meaning which its administrator has placed upon it is
very different from seeking the one and only “correct” meaning of
the statute. In the United States some courts and writers have
asserted a similar doctrine of restraint by the Court: an Agency
finding should be respected if it has a “reasonable” or a “rational”
basis in law.35 The test of “reasonableness”, as opposed to “correct-
ness”, does offer a good likelihood of a decision which is informed
by agency expertise, and which is nevertheless responsive to dem-
ocratic and civil libertarian values. It forces the Court to treat the
Agency as a partner (albeit a junior partner) in interpreting the
scope of the Agency’s powers. However, the Court may still overrule
the Agency if its use of power cannot be sustained on a reasonable
33 Ibid., 187 (my italics).
3 Ibid.
35 See IV Davis, supra, f.n.15, s.30.05. This is not a universally accepted
doctrine in the U.S.A., however: see IV Davis, supra, f.n.15, ss.30.06, 30.07; and
f.n.13, above. Jaffe argues for a “clear statutory purpose” test, which accords
a much stronger role to the Court: “where the judges are themselves con-
vinced that a certain reading, or application, of the statute is the correct –
or the only faithful –
reading or application, they should intervene and so
declare”: Jaffe, supra, f.n.13, 572. In his view a “competent and responsible
judiciary” should assert its view of the statute, even where the agency’s
construction is a “sensible” one: ibid., 576.
1974].-
JUDICIAL REVIEW’: HOW MUCH DO WE NEED?
169
interpretation of the statute. What is reasonable must be decided by
the Court. It should depend to some extent upon the nature of the
power. In Beatty v. Kozak the power had enabled the defendants to
imprison the plaintiff for 44 days. In interpreting a statute which
confers a power of this order, it is necessary to weigh the official
claim to effective government against the individual’s claim to
personal liberty. The danger is that the Agency, if unchecked by the
Court, may place too great an emphasis on its perception of the
needs of government and too little on the competing claim to per-
sonal liberty. And yet our legal order places a high value on the claim
to personal liberty. It is for the generalist Court to see to it that this
value is not overwhelmed by a distorted interpretation of govern-
mental power. The Court is justified in insisting that invasions of
fundamental civil liberties should be authorized by relatively clear
language. The range of reasonable interpretations is limited by the
competing civil libertarian values. In Beatty v. Kozak it seems to
me that Rand,J. uncharacteristically gave insufficient weight to
these values. The police interpretation of the power was certainly
not absurd; but it did strain the statutory language. I believe that,
taking all considerations into account, it was outside the “reason-
able” range. (It may be possible to support Rand,J.’s view on the
footing that there was a privative clause in the statute; the privative
clause would certainly justify greater judicial restraint.)
In Beatty v. Kozak the Court had to decide when the police
power arose, and it did so by interpreting the empowering statute.
The Court is often asked to decide on issues of this kind: an official
decision is rendered, and the question whether the statute author-
izes that kind of decision is raised. For example, the Governor-in-
Council expropriates wheat to prevent profiteering from the end
of price controls;36 the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto enacts
a by-law providing for the fluoridation of drinking water to diminish
tooth decay;37 the Ontario Racing Commission orders an owner to
rename horses whose names are “in bad taste”;38 the Department
of National Revenue orders a bank to produce the records of its
dealings with a customer whose taxation liability is under investi-
gation;3 9 the Board of Transport Commissioners orders Bell Tele-
phone to supply service in an area served by another telephone
36 Canadian Wheat Board v. Nolan, [1951] S.C.R. 81; revd sub. nom. A.-G. Can.
V. Hallet & Carey Ltd., [1952] A.C. 427 (P.C.). (The case had commenced before
the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council.)
3 7Metropolitan Toronto v. Village of Forest Hill, [1957] S.C.R. 569.
3sWm. F. Morrissey Ltd. v.,Ontario Racing Commission, [1960] S.C.R. 104.
39Canadian Bank of Commerce v. A.-G. Can., [1962] S.C.R. 729.
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company;40
the Department of Immigration grants a period of
“probation” to an illegal immigrant;4 1 the Department of Transport
as pilotage authority classifies pilots into grades with different
salaries and responsibilities;4 2 and the Canadian Radio-Television
Commission instead of revoking a radio broadcasting licence renews
it for a terminal period.43 Each of these cases (and there are many
others) is essentially similar to Beatty v. Kozak. A decision is made
by an official (or agency) acting in good faith in what he believes is
the due execution of his powers. In each case the Court must decide
whether the empowering statute authorized the decision. In each
case the result depends upon whether the Court is willing to give
the statute a broad construction in support of the official interest,
or whether it will choose a narrow construction in support of the
individual interest. My study of the cases -in the Supreme Court
between 1949 and 1971″ discloses no clear pattern of result, which
is to be expected, bearing in mind the great variety in the cases. On
the whole, however, the tendency is in favour of the administrative
construction. The Court rarely articulates any policy of deference
to a reasonable administrative interpretation, but its practice does
generally accord with that policy.
Abuse of Discretion
Is there any scope for judicial review where the Agency has made
a decision which falls literally within the language of the empower-
ing statute? If we incorporate the “reasonableness” test into this
question, the question becomes whether it is ever unreasonable for
the Agency to rely on the clear language of the empowering statute.
Usually, of course, the answer is no. But there are exceptions and
Smith and Rhuland v. The Queen 45 is one of them. In that case the
Nova Scotia Labour Relations Board refused certification to a union
on the ground that the union was dominated by an official who was
a Communist. The Supreme Court of Canada, by a majority, quashed
the decision. 40 Rand,J.’s majority opinion agreed that the empower-
4oMetcalfe Telephones Ltd. v. McKenna, [1964] S.C.R. 202.
41 Violi v. Superintendent of Immigration, [1965] S.C.R. 232.
42 ones and Maheux v. Gamache, [1969] S.C.R. 119.
43Confederation Broadcasting (Ottawa) Ltd. v. Canadian Radio-Television
Commission, [1971] S.C.R. 906.
44 (1973) 11 Osgoode Hall L.J. 187.
45 [1953] 2 S.C.R. 95.
46 Rand,J.’s opinion, discussed in the text, was concurred in by Kerwin
and Estey,JJ. Kellock,J. concurred in the result, but on the ground that the
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JUDICIAL REVIEW: HOW MUCH DO WE NEED?
ing statute gave to the Board a discretionary power not to certify a
union even when the union enjoyed the support of a sufficient
number of employees in the bargaining unit. But that discretion was
not unfettered. It was not open to the Board “to act upon the view
that official association with an individual holding political views
considered to be dangerous by the Board proscribes a labour
organization”.4 7 An exercise of discretion based on that ground was
outside the empowering statute and invalid.
Can this result be accommodated within a theory of judicial
review which insists upon restraint on the part of the Court? More
specifically, why is this case different from Metropolitan Life, which
I criticized earlier?48 In both cases a Labour Board made a con-
sidered determination of an issue having elements of fact and law,
and having a strong labour relations policy component. If the Court
was wrong to intervene in Metropolitan Life, can it have been right
in Smith and Rhuland? I believe that it was. In Smith and Rhuland
the Board’s policy was in violation of freedom of association, a
general value of the highest importance to the Canadian democratic
legal order. This value had to be weighed in the balance with the
Agency’s perception of a desirable labour relations policy. In reject-
ing that policy the Court was insisting that such a serious invasion
of democratic and civil libertarian values be clearly authorized by
the empowering statute 9 The generalist Court was reminding the
specialist Agency that the Agency was not “an island entire of itself”,
and that its work had to be brought “into harmony with the totality
of the law”.50
The doctrine which was applied in Smith and Rhuland, is the
familiar one that statutory discretion must not be exercised in bad
faith, or for an improper purpose, or upon irrelevant considerations.
Bad faith, in the sense of dishonesty or corruption or the deliberate
use of power to accomplish a private end, is virtually non-existent,
at least in the cases which come before the Supreme Court of Canada.
The problems concern the proper definition of “improper purpose”
or “irrelevant considerations”. In theory the answer is simple: these
are purposes or considerations which lie outside the scope of the
Board had no discretion not to certify a union which satisfied the conditions
of certification. Taschereau, Cartwright and Fauteux,JJ. dissented on the
ground that the Board had exercised its statutory discretion, and the Court
should not intervene.
47 [1953] 2 S.C.R. 95, 100.
48See text accompanying f.n.7, supra.
49 See especially [1953] 2 S.C.R. 95, 98 per Rand,J.
50 Jaffe, supra, f.n.13, 590.
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empowering statute. In practice, however, there is usually room for
disagreement on whether a given purpose or consideration is within
the scope of the empowering statute. Here, as elsewhere, the Agency
should be given the benefit of any reasonable doubt. I have explained
why I think Smith and Rhuland was rightly decided. The majority
of cases in which an exercise of discretion is attacked are more like
that of Metropolitan Life: the Agency’s perception of its role is a
reasonable inference from the empowering statute, and therefore
the Court should defer to it. My study of the Supreme Court deci-
sions r1 shows that, while the results are not uniform, on the whole
the Court has chosen the path of deference.
Natural Justice
The Court will also review a decision which falls literally within
the language of the empowering statute in cases where the Agency
has reached its decision by an unfair procedure. Thus a Board of
Health with the power to evict the occupants of a dwelling on
grounds related to health may issue an eviction order without dis-
closing the grounds to the occupants and without giving them
an opportunity to be heard 2 A Labour Relations Board with the
power to revoke a union’s certificate of representation “for cause”
may revoke the certificate of a teachers’ union without giving the
union an opportunity to be heard. 3 An immigration officer with
the power to deport certain aliens may make a deportation order
against a man and his wife without giving the wife a separate
opportunity to establish that she should not be included in the
order. 4
It is not necessary to multiply examples. It is trite law that the
Court will require an adjudicatory agency with the power to affect
“the rights of subjects” to observe the rules of natural justice. The
Court’s reasoning is that, even if the empowering statute is silent on
the procedure which its Agency must follow, the Legislature could
not have intended the Agency to exercise its powers in breach of
fundamental principles of justice. And so, as was said in 1863, “the
justice of the common law will supply the omission of the legisla-
11 Osgoode Hall L.i. 187.
61 (1973)
52 Board of Health (Saltfleet Township) v. Knapman, [1956] S.C.R. 877.
53Alliance des Professeurs Catholiques de Montrial v. Labour Relations
Board of Quebec, [1953] 2 S.C.R. 140.
54 Moshos v. Minister of Manpower and Immigration, [1969] S.C.R. 886.
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JUDICIAL REVIEW: HOW MUCH DO WE NEED?
ture”.6 5 In short, the Court interprets the statute as impliedly re-
quiring that the rules of natural justice be complied with.
This interpretation is not available, of course, where the Legis-
lature has made clear that the Agency need not afford any hearing,
or need not be unbiased.5 6 But the Court insists that the statute
should be clear on the point. This would not seem an unwarranted
intrusion by the Court. An Agency with the power to determine
questions affecting property rights or personal liberties obviously
must decide how to ascertain the information upon which its de-
cisions will be based. In many cases the values of efficiency and
fairness will not conflict. Both will dictate that the person affected
should give his version of the facts before a final decision is made.
But there is always a danger –
amply substantiated by the decided
cases –
that the Agency will make its decision without affording
an adequate hearing to the person affected. The Agency may decide
that this would cause too much delay, or that it would be a waste
of time; or it may simply-be insensitive to the anxieties of the persons
subject to its jurisdiction. It is clear that the Court should here, as
elsewhere, defer to a reasonable Agency judgment on the Agency’s
own procedures. To insist upon courtroom rules of procedure and
evidence would defeat some of the reasons for establishing the
Agency in the first place. But at the point where the Agency’s pro-
cedure ceases to be merely informal and becomes unfair, judicial
intervention is justified. The Agency’s decision then comes into
collision with the general value of procedural fairness which runs
throughout the legal order, and judicial intervention is justified.
It must be remembered too that the courts themselves have
developed a considerable expertise in matters of procedure. Cen-
turies of concern about their own procedures and about those of
the agencies which prerogative writs have brought before them
have taught that there are principles of procedural fairness which
apply to a large number of otherwise different institutions, which
are therefore capable of generalised statement, and which only the
courts have the breadth of experience to formulate. It is true that
the courts have not been conspicuously successful in laying down
workable rules on when the rules of natural justice are applicable,
and what precisely they entail. But some of the criticism of the
courts stems from an irrational hostility to any legal concept which
55 Cooper v. Wandsworth Board of Works (1863), 14 C.B.N.S. 180, 194; 143 E.R.
414, 420 per Byles,J.
56 This may no longer be true in the case of federal statutes because of the
Canadian Bill of Rights, 8-9 Eliz. II, c.44, s.2(e).
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cannot be neatly cut and dried; we manage perfectly well with many
concepts which are incapable of precise definition, as, for example,
that of negligence. 7 The courts would be unwise to elaborate unduly
the rules of natural justice because of the great variety of agencies
to which the rules must be applied. This is not to say that the rules
are as clear as they could be. The Supreme Court of Canada, in
particular, has thoroughly confused me (at least) by its poorly
reasoned holdings. But it is one thing to criticize the craftsmanship
of the Court, as I have done elsewhere,58 and quite another to deny
that the Court should concern itself with procedural justice in the
agencies. I believe firmly that it should do so.59
Privative Clauses
Privative clauses, on my definition, are all statutory provisions de-
signed to oust judicial review: finality clauses, no-certiorari clauses,
as-if-enacted clauses, and also clauses imposing prior notice require-
ments or short limitation periods. The Court’s refusal to give effect
to privative clauses is notorious: it clearly flies in the face of the
legislative intent.60 And yet to interpret such clauses literally, as
Bora Laskin has urged in his well-known 1952 article,6′ seems to me
to ignore countervailing civil libertarian values. The literal reading
of privative clauses would have defeated the plaintiffs in each of
the three Jehovah’s Witnesses cases, which concerned flagrant
abuses of official power.02 It is difficult to accept that the Legislature
in enacting a privative clause intends to exclude all judicial review,
no matter how far the Agency appears to exceed its powers, and no
matter how severely it invades personal or proprietary rights. I have
57 See Ridge v. Baldwin, [1964] A.C. 40, 64-65 per Lord Reid.
58 (1973) 11 Osgoode Hall LJ. 187, 206-211.
59 My comments are, of course, addressed to the case where there is no
statutory code of procedure. The establishment in Ontario (The Statutory
Powers Procedure Act, 1971, S.O. 1971, c.47) of such a code, with a committee
to tailor the code to each particular agency, is an innovation which will ob-
viously leave little scope for application of the rules of natural justice. For
criticism, see Willis, The McRuer Report: Lawyers’ Values and Civil Servants’
Values, (1968) 18 U. of T. L.. 351.
60See articles in (1952) 30 Can. Bar Rev. 69 (Sutherland); (1952) 30 Can.
Bar Rev. 986 (Laskin); (1965) 23 U. of T.Fac.L.R. 5 (Pink); (1967) U.B.C.L.
Rev. – C. de D. 219 (Carter); (1969) 34 Sask.L.R. 334 (Norman).
61 Laskin, Certiorari to Labour Boards: The Apparent Futility of Privative
Clauses, (1952) 30 Can. Bar Rev. 986.
02 See text accompanying f.n26-28, supra.
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JUDICIAL REVIEW: HOW MUCH DO WE NEED?
argued elsewhere 3 for a compromise between the current judicial
approach and the Laskin approach. The compromise, which has
been worked out in some of the opinions of Rand, Judson and
AbbottJJ. in the Supreme Court of Canada, and which has become
the prevailing doctrine in the High Court of Australia, is to interpret
the clause as requiring even more restraint than usual on the part
of the Court. The Agency’s decision must stand so long as it is a
bona fide attempt to exercise the power and is reasonably capable
of reference to the power. This formulation should protect most
decisions, while leaving the door ajar to review in the rare extreme
case.
Conclusions
1. In deciding matters which have to be decided in order to reach
a decision, the Agency’s findings should normally by treated as
conclusive. The costs of judicial review are not justified by the
likelihood of a better decision. This is so even where the error alleged
may be classified as one of “law”, because a ruling of “law” tends
to be a compound of law, fact and policy, which lies peculiarly
within the expertise of the Agency.
2. Where, however, the Agency’s decision is in conflict with a
value which is fundamental to the legal order as a whole, the
generalist Court is under a duty to consider whether the admin-
istrative decision should prevail over the more fundamental value.
The administrative decision which is completely unauthorized by
statute must never be permitted to prevail, for that would subvert
the democratic legal order. The administrative decision which bears
some relationship to a statutory power should not be quashed so
long as it is a reasonable interpretation of the power. The Court
must decide whether the interpretation is reasonable. In order to
decide this, the Court should consider the reasons for the admin-
istrative assumption of authority, and should balance those reasons
against the civil libertarian or proprietary values which are asserted
by the individual affected.
3. Where the Agency’s decision is authorized by a literal reading
of general language in a statute, the Court still retains a power of
review; it may in effect cut down the generality of the language to
protect fundamental civil libertarian values. Cases such as Smith
and Rhuland, the natural justice cases and some of the privative
63 (1973) 11 Osgoode Hall L.. 187, 196-204.
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clause cases are not unfaithful to the command of the legislature,
for it is a reasonable inference that a generally worded provision,
whose application to an ordinary case is clear, is not designed to
cover an extraordinary case. In effect the Legislature is assumed
not to have disturbed values which are basic to our legal order,
unless it does so clearly and specifically.
4. There is no institution in our community better equipped
than the Court to check the Agency at the point where its action is
out of harmony with the legal order as a whole. Judicial review is
rarely needed, but when it is needed nothing else will do.4
14 1 am grateful to my colleagues, Professors William Angus, Maurice Cullity
and Paul Weiler, and to my wife, Frances Hogg, for reading a draft of this
lecture and making suggestions for its improvement.
