Wednesday was a day 'off' as I had a work commitment to take care of. Yesterday, I completed 2 units of Administrative Law: Fairness: The Right to be Heard and Fairness: Bias. Basically, the two 'pillars' of procedural fairness are the right to be heard, including the right to be informed of proceedings and to be given adequate notice so that you can prepare and make submissions, and the right to an impartial decision maker (ie: bias free).
Bias can be individual or institutional. An adjudicator who has a conflict of interest or a closed mind is 'individually biased', whereas institutional bias would mean that the entire organization is biased by virtue of its structure or ties to the government. This is because tribunals are supposed to have a degree of independence - not completely independent like the courts - but the more 'court like' the operations, the more independence is expected. Also, the significance of the decision will impact on how independent the tribunal must be. So the Parole Board, for instance, determines liberty of the person (inmate). It must not take instruction from the Minister of Public Safety or the Warden. It is fine for the government to set broad policies and regulations for the Parole Board, but it must then be permitted to operate independently within that framework. If, for example, the performance bonus of the Chair of the Parole Board is controlled by the Minister, or if the Chair holds office 'at the pleasure of the Minister', these are signs of a lack of independence, that could suggest institutional bias.
Alors. That's enough of a lesson for this blog entry. I'm off to the library to start the second section of the Admin Law course - advocacy before tribunals (basically, procedures for presenting cases and general rules that apply). I'm getting very close to halfway done both of my courses, which is EXCITING! Maybe I am not as far behind as I thought.
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