Administrative tribunals in Malta

Abstract

One of the most striking developments in our present social and administrative arrangements is the requisition of judicial powers by great departments of state and by various other bodies and persons outside the Courts of Law. This is consequent to the increase in government responsibility for, and activity in, social and economic matters and the abandonment of the principles of laissez faire. In the post-war world electorates all over the world have chosen governments which accepted general res ponsibilities for the provision of extended social services and for the broad management of the economy. This has led to an ever increasing encroachment by the state on the liberties of the individual in the interests of the commu nity, although this is not always opposed to the interests of the individual. In such an environment opportunities for dispute between the individual citizen and the admin istration are considerable. Hence the emergence of administrative tribunals. In 1947, Robson wrote with great perception "The traditional Court system in which an isolated individ uals contest disputed rights of property and person, has been superseded by an entirely new type of judicial process so far as concerns controversies arising in connection with the great new social services undertaken by the state. Executive justice, far from being a temporary and accidental intrusion into the mellowed sanctity of the British Constitution is inherently connected with modern social evolution, and is a feature of government likely to grow extensively during the present century. Administrative Tribunals will, I venture to predict, become of increasing importance as adjudicatory bodies in disputes a large number of economic and social affaires".