Report No. 162

Chapter II

The Purpose of Administrative Law

2.1 The Purpose of Administrative Law.-

The State regulates the lives of its citizens in manifold ways. The ordinary citizen has to encounter the government at every turn, particularly so if he is engaged in business or is the owner of the property or employed in the Government or its agencies. It is, therefore, a requisite of efficient public administration that a fair balance must be struck between the interest of the State on the one hand and those of the citizen on the other hand because of the paramount concern of administrative law which is to protect the public and the citizen from abuse of official power.

This notion of fair balance is a justification for the existence of administrative law or its French equivalent, droit administrative, as part of public law. The courts interfere to protect the interest of the citizen only to the extent necessary and within the framework of principles and concepts known to the science of administrative law. It is not for the courts, in the exercise of revisional jurisdiction to determine in the first instance, matters of administration, before the Government has itself dealt with such matters on merit.

(Z.M. Nedjati and J.E. Trice English and Continental Systems of Administrative Law, Chapter I).