Questions

1. What is the main purpose of the administrative justice system?
2. Explain what is meant by (a) redress; (b) grievance mechanisms.
3. When will a public inquiry be set up?
4. Are public inquiries fully independent from government?
5. What is the role of the PHSO?
6. How does the Ombudsman process differ from the court process?
7. What is the function of tribunals?
8. What key reform was introduced after the Leggatt Report?

Answers

1. It enables individuals to resolve complaints, grievances, and disputes about administrative or executive decisions of public bodies, and to obtain redress, ensuring justice and fairness.
2. (a) Redress means obtaining a remedy; (b) grievance mechanisms exist to achieve redress and to ensure accountability and improved public administration. They range from informal, non-legal mechanisms to formal court action through judicial review.
3. It is set up by government to objectively investigate issues of serious public concern on the public’s behalf e.g. a major failure or high-profile disaster and to set out lessons learned for the future.
4. Not entirely; although they are conducted independently once established, they are set up by government, ministers frame the inquiry’s terms of reference, decide who should chair them and appoint panel members, and the 2005 Act strengthened ministerial powers over statutory inquiries. Governments do not have to accept the inquiry’s recommendations.
5. To impartially investigate complaints of maladministration by government departments and other public organisations and agencies across the UK (unless they are devolved) and the NHS in England, and overall, to provide independent scrutiny of the executive.
6. It is low-cost, investigatory, and not adversarial, so representation by lawyers is not necessary.
7. They are permanent, specialised judicial bodies within the justice system, and determine rights and entitlements in disputes between citizens and state in specific areas of law, enabling citizens to hold the state to account.
8. A single tribunals system with a two-tier structure.