Legalism and English Administrative Law: Comment on Sterett

In a recent issue of this journal (Volume 15, Number 4, Fall 1990), Susan Sterett examined the role of the Law Commission in the development of English administrative law. She suggested that the Commission mimicked a "peak association" and adopted an "idiom of legalism" in order to justify its reform proposals. This comment disagrees with Sterett on three grounds. First, the role and constitutional position of the Commission is far more complex than Sterett suggests, and this affects the way in which the Commission works. Second, judges and academic lawyers were central to the reform of substantive principles of judicial review in the 1960s and 1970s, making it unnecessary for the Law Commission to act in this field. Finally, it is wrong to ignore the fact that much administrative law occurs outside the judicial review procedure.     

‘Trainingism’ revisited in Papua New Guinea

Despite much training in public administration over the past 20 years there has been little improvement in public service management in the Third World. This was anticipated in Schaffer's critical notion of ‘trainingism’. This concept, when applied to Papua New Guinea, helps us to understand why training has been unable to produce dramatic changes in public service performance. Training has been used to perform latent functions and has not been evaluated. The situation is currently under review as new initiatives are taking place to improve training's contribution to public service efficiency and effectiveness.     

Contemporary Pluralism and Toleration

The author outlines a conception of toleration as recognition of differences which she argues to be more adequate than current liberal views in order to face issues arising from contemporary pluralism. The liberal conception of toleration as freedom from government's interference in certain areas is appropriate if pluralism is conceived of as a plurality of conflicting conceptions of the good. By contrast, if pluralism is understood as the plurality of groups and cultures, asymmetrically situated in democratic society, then the issues underlying toleration are seen as the contested claim of minorities for asserting their different identity in the public space. Public toleration of differences is thus viewed as a symbolic public gesture of inclusion of the different identities and their bearers into democratic citizenship on an equal footing as members of minority groups. The argument supporting public toleration is so founded on reason of justice.