Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional legal opinion.
Briefing Paper No. 10/1997 by Honor Figgis
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- The Administrative Decisions Tribunal Bill 1997 establishes an
Administrative Decisions Tribunal (ADT), that will have jurisdiction to
review the merits of administrative decisions, and to vary or set aside a
decision that is not the correct or preferable decision in the circumstances.
The ADT will also have jurisdiction to make some original decisions
adjudicating disputes between persons, or between persons and professional
bodies. Jurisdiction is conferred on the ADT by the cognate Administrative
Decisions Legislation Amendment Bill 1997 (p 4).
- The ADT Bill creates a scheme of review for persons who
are adversely affected by a range of government decisions. The essence of the
scheme is that a person affected by a decision may request reasons for the
decision from the administrator. If dissatisfied with the reasons, the person
can apply for the decision to be reviewed internally. If the person is still
aggrieved after internal review, he or she can apply to an independent
tribunal, the Administrative Decisions Tribunal (ADT) for review. A decision of
the ADT as to the merits of the original decision may be appealed to an Appeal
Panel of the ADT. A decision of the Appeal Panel may be appealed to the Supreme
Court on a question of law (pp 9-11).
- The ADT will initially consist of 4 divisions: a General
Division, a Community Services Division, a Legal Services
Division and an Equal Opportunity Division. It will eventually have
jurisdiction in a wide range of fields to hear appeals from on the merits of
administrative decisions, and to make some original adjudicative decisions. The
Government will undertake a review of almost all administrative decisions that
may be made in New South Wales to determine which ones should be reviewable on
their merits (pp 19-27).
- The briefing paper looks at some of the main features of
the proposed ADT -its structure, procedures, provision for legal representation
of parties, the circumstances where the ADT must give effect to government
policy, the membership of the tribunal, and the relationship between the ADT
and the Ombudsman (pp 10-18).
- The briefing paper discusses the proposed review and original
jurisdiction of the ADT, and some possible criteria for determining its
future jurisdiction. The extent of the possible jurisdiction for the ADT
indicates that it may become an umbrella tribunal -a single tribunal
determining a wide range of disputes between individuals and government,
between individuals, and between individuals and professional bodies (pp
19-27). This will make the ADT an unusual tribunal compared with the
administrative appeals tribunals established in other jurisdictions.
- Some implications of the ADT for the future role of the New
South Wales court system are considered (pp 29-30).
