TOWARDS A BETTER PUBLIC LAW?

In the UK Constitution, the major weapon of judicial control over the exercise of governmental power is provided by the action for judicial review. This action serves to keep public bodies within the scope of the powers conferred on them by law. Prior to the present Law Commission inquiry into procedural aspects of judicial review, the matter was last examined in 1977 since when there have been significant changes in the ways in which governmental power is exercised and controlled. This article takes as its focus the Law Commission's Report No.226 Judicial Review and Statutory Appeals and examines specific proposals contained therein arguing that, underlying the reforms, there exists no coherent vision of the future role of public law. Instead, what is revealed is a confused cocktail of measures in which the tension between the legitimate needs of public administration and the opposing requirement that government act according to law remains unacknowledged and thereby unresolved. There is, moreover, a disappointing failure to evaluate the experience of public law procedures found in other jurisdictions. In response to these perceived deficiencies, the authors set out an alternative and principled account of judicial review, the central feature of which is to ensure that public power is subjected to an appropriate degree of judicial scrutiny. This alternative account is later used to inform arguments about specific reforms. In this regard, the valuable experience of other jurisdictions'public law procedures is also drawn upon.     

Dimensions of Enforcement Style: Factoring in Regulatory Autonomy and Capacity

This article explores how the concept of enforcement style can be adapted to be more analytically useful in the study of regulatory behavior and its effects in developing countries. In its first part, the article sets forth a dimensional conception of enforcement style and suggests two new dimensions to incorporate the variations in the autonomy and capacity of regulatory agencies that are so significant in developing countries. In its second part, the article uses this analytical framework to compare the enforcement styles of state environmental agencies in two Brazilian states, São Paulo and Pará.     

Democracy through Multilevel Governance? The Implementation of the Structural Funds in South Yorkshire

This article considers the democratic qualities of multilevel governance at the stage of policy implementation closest to the ground, involving local residents and organizations. Drawing on a case study of the structural funds in South Yorkshire (United Kingdom), it puts forward three models of democracy through which to evaluate the democratic credentials of multilevel governance. The case study illustrates that among the expected complexity and technocracy at this stage of policymaking, there are also experiments in local democracy that have not previously been identified in the academic literature. As such, in the context of deep multilevel governance, there is evidence that while traditional mechanisms of accountability may be undermined, other mechanisms may provide a valuable alternative.