Delanoy v. Public Service Commission Appeal Board

Rarely does an Administrative Law decision raise the issue of the proper relationship between boards and courts as starkly as the recent Federal Court of Appeal judgment in Delanoy v. Public Service Commission Appeal Board.1 Generally, judicial review tends to focus upon the limits of natural justice (i.e. procedural questions) rather than the problems of formal (non-procedural) jurisdiction and therefore permits courts to assert legalistic values under the guise of due process . However, almost as if impelled by the favourable comments that their incursions into this field have drawn from academics, the courts have manifested in recent years an almost insatiable desire to arrogate to themselves the additional role of developing and policing administrative policy-making. The Delanoy case seems to be one instance where the Court so inappropriately assumed such a role that some of the parameters of judicial review on non-procedural grounds can be explored usefully