For What It’s Worth

University of Toronto professor Richard Stacey recently released an article in the University of Toronto Law Journal (paywalled, which is truly unfortunate), arguing that (among other things) the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in  Vavilov “affirm[s]” the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Doré  (340; see also 351). To be specific, Stacey says (340-341):

Read together, and building on a rich body of Canadian case law that came before,  Vavilov and Doré  definitively mark a culture shift way from an outcomes-oriented conception of judicial review toward one that engenders a culture of justification…

…in a culture of justification built on a robust conception of reasonableness, constitutional law and administrative law come together in a unified system of public law.

Stacey also makes a number of other arguments, including: (1) the culture of justification apparently endorsed in the same way in  Vavilov and Doré necessarily and logically excludes correctness review (see pg 349) and (2) so-called “Charter values” act as “justificatory resources” that together bind a unified system of public law, bringing  Vavilov and Doré  together (357 et seq). That is the core of Stacey’s argument: the so-called “unity of public law” thesis draws together a requirement that administrative decisions be justified.

Stacey’s argument is interesting, but ultimately unpersuasive. For one, it treads well-worn territory of “administrative constitutionalism” and “the unity of public law,” theories that—as I will argue—are actually undermined by  Vavilov’s formalism. While  Vavilov does put a focus on justification, Stacey’s article does not deal with the parts of  Vavilov that clearly work against his thesis: the dispatch of expertise as a factor governing the standard of review; and the retention of correctness review based on Rule of Law considerations, among other things. Secondly, Stacey’s article does not engage with key scholarship on this issue post- Vavilov that could both strengthen and undermine his case. Finally, Stacey attaches too much determinacy to Charter values, ethereal things that even their most ardent supporters must agree are relatively indeterminate: perhaps not of this world.

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Stacey sets out his argument on the first issue (the marriage between Doré  and  Vavilov) boldly: “The foundation of both cases is the same, and both judgments ultimately embrace the same conception of reasonableness” [351]. Stacey cites the Alsaloussi case out of the Federal Court, where the Court relied on  Vavilov in a Doré -type case to give guidance “on what a reasonable decision looks like” [351]. To Stacey, this case—and the theory—reinforces “how the two judgments help to draw administrative and constitutional law together in a single, unified system of law” [352].

As I have outlined previously, I do not see how this is the case, even on the terms of the reasonableness standard. Doré  was positively unclear about what administrators should do when faced with a Charter claim, beyond saying that an administrative decision-maker “balances the Charter values with the statutory objectives” (Doré , at para 55 et seq). The only question for a judicial review court is whether “in assessing the impact of the relevant Charter protection and given the nature of the decision and the statutory and factual contexts, the decision reflects a proportionate balancing of the Charter protections at play” (Doré , at para 57). But, unlike the Oakes test, and unlike  Vavilov’s list of constraints, the Doré -line of cases do not provide any guidance on how courts should conduct the proportionality analysis.  Vavilov provides a far more robust and detailed schema of reasonableness than Doré  does, and so to equate these cases on this front is ultimately unpersuasive. The similarity on the reasonableness front—if it exists—is cosmetic at best.

Stacey also does not address why  Vavilov’s comments on constitutional issues do not demand a correctness standard in the Doré  context. As a reminder, the Court in  Vavilov—while expressly excepting Doré  from the scope of the comments for now (see para 55)—said that “[t]he constitutional authority to act must have determinate, defined and consistent limits, which necessitates the application of the correctness standard” ( Vavilov, at para 56).  As I have said before, this should logically include Charter issues. But Stacey does not address this point, nor does he address important literature attacking administrative constitutionalism as a general theory (see Leonid Sirota’s paper here).

Moreover, Stacey does not address other post- Vavilov commentary that could actually strengthen his point. For example, Paul Daly argues that all issues going to the merits in  Vavilov are, on its own terms, subject to the reasonableness standard. I have my issues with this argument, but I think it is far more persuasive in support of Stacey’s argument than the evidence Stacey actually offers–in part because it takes Vavilov on it’s own terms.

Relatedly, Stacey argues that a joint-reading of  Vavilov and Doré  renders the correctness standard irrelevant (349). Yet this is not convincing to me. As I have argued, and as Professor Daly argues to a similar extent,  Vavilov is not just one thing, easily explained with reference to a catchphrase like “culture of justification.” There are various currents of administrative law thought coursing through the decision.  Vavilov’s comments on the Rule of Law, for example, are relatively formalistic, focusing on the role of the courts as the guardian of the Constitution. On the other hand, other parts of  Vavilov clearly draw from the justificatory school of administrative law thought, championed by scholars like David Dyzenhaus. As I have argued in previous work, these schools of thought can be complementary, but  Vavilov is clearly a product of pragmatic agreement, even if guided by principle to some extent. Professor Stacey does not address this reality when he excludes correctness from the standard of review equation, without as much as addressing the counter-arguments clearly presented in Vavilov. Indeed, if one follows  Vavilov’s formalistic side, correctness review still has a valuable—and formally required—role in Canadian administrative law.

Finally, I should draw attention to Stacey’s argument on Charter values. Much has been written on Charter values, and I need not reprise that literature to make my objection: Stacey’s focus on Charter values as justificatory resources is only useful if the set of justificatory resources is relatively bounded and determinate. While we cannot expect perfect or near-perfect determinacy in law, and moral reasoning with regards to rights-claims is inevitable, this does not logically entail an embrace of Charter values. The problem is that Charter values are endlessly indeterminate—they are not necessarily bounded by the text of the guarantees they are supposed to represent, and some Charter values could conceivably not be found in the text. Enterprising courts and litigants could pitch a value at high level of generality, leading to needlessly subjective moralizing about rights in a way untethered to the doctrine of various constitutional guarantees. Since there is no clear agreement on (1) how to determine what Charter values are relevant; (2) how Charter values are different than Charter rights; and (3) on how administrators are supposed to understand Charter values as distinct from Charter rights, this set of justificatory resources is not at all helpful to courts or litigants.

Tying together Stacey’s article is a common claim: “…I see no distinction between administrative and constitutional law in the first place” (357). Of course, this is a common (one might say orthodox) position. And yet it ignores an important function of constitutional law in relation to the administrative state—the Constitution (written and unwritten) is a limitation or constraint on government action (see  Vavilov, at 56). The hierarchy of laws exists for a reason, and under that hierarchy administrative discretion is parasitic on a statutory grant, which itself is subject to Charter scrutiny. There is no real, formal equality between administrative law and constitutional law: the Constitution is supreme, and it shapes and constrains government power. It does not liberate administrative discretion.

All told, Professor Stacey’s article contributes to the growing post- Vavilov literature. Unfortunately, I do not find it convincing.  Nonetheless, the Supreme Court will eventually deal with Doré  post- Vavilov. And until then, my opinion is worth as much as the page it’s written on, for what it’s worth.