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Administrative Law
Administrative Law
Administrative Law
Administrative Law is that branch of public law which deals with three things:
Administrative law covers all the portion of the public law of the land concerning executive and administrative officials. It deals
with the enforcement and execution of the laws of the State, its powers and duties, the law on public officers, their election,
appointment, and removal, their rights, duties, and liabilities. It also covers the law of public corporations, the laws that provide
for the grant of rights, privileges, bounties of government to private individuals.
The chief concern of administrative law is the protection of private rights. Its subject matter is the nature and mode of exercise
of administrative power and the system of relief against administrative action.
Its function is to make the government machinery work well in an orderly manner. It is the body of rules that makes every
component part of the government perform its assigned tasks.
ADMINISTRATIVE BODY
An administrative body is a body composed of one or more officials designed to carry on certain business of government, to
dispense certain services or privileges accorded by government, to regulate certain public callings, to promote the general
welfare through police regulations, to determine rights of individuals in certain cases where a strong social policy is involved, to
use a varying degree of discretion in arriving at decision and, often to proceed without being bound by some of the so-called
technical procedures of law courts.
2. seeking to carry on certain business of the government (such as BIR, Bureau of Customs)
3. seeking to regulate business affected with public interest (such as Land Transportation Commission)
4. exercising police power to regulate private businesses and individuals (such as Securities and Exchange
Commission)
5. adjusting individual controversies because of some strong social policy involved (such as National Labor Relations
Commission, Court of Agrarian Relations)
6. setting up of bodies where the government becomes a private party (such as Commission on Audit and GSIS)
1. Ministerial Powers – this refers to the administrative body’s power to perform a given state of facts, in a prescribed
manner, in obedience to the mandate of a legal authority without regard to the exercise of his own judgment.
(Example, Register of Deeds with respect to the registration of properties)
2. Discretionary Powers – this refers to the administrative body’s authority to do any act, the doing of the same being
dependent upon his sound discretion (Example, the Commission on Audit, an auditor exercises his discretion in
the performance of his duties)
a. Directing power – refers to corrective powers, power of assessment, abstract determination such as
definition, valuation, classification, and fact-finding (Example, power of assessment of BIR)
b. Dispensing power – consists of the granting of exemptions from or relaxing of a general prohibition
(Example, authority of the zoning boards to vary the provision of zoning statute or ordinance)
c. Enabling power- the power to approve something which the law undertakes to regulate; manifested in
the granting or denial of licenses to engage in a particular business or occupation (Example, LTFRB,
Board of Censors, Central Bank)
d. Examining power – also called the investigatory power, which consists in requiring the production of
books, papers, records for inspection, the attendance of witnesses and compelling their testimony and
the filing of statements (Example, Commission on Elections)
e. Summary power – the power to apply compulsion or force against a person or property to effectuate a
legal purpose without a judicial warrant to authorize such action
4. Quasi-legislative Power (rule-making power) – the power of making rules and regulations to govern a certain
subject within its jurisdiction. This grant of rule-making power is a relaxation of the principle of separation of
power and serves an as exception to the non-delegation of legislative power. Administrative relations adopted
under legislative authority by particular department must be in harmony with the provisions of the law, and
should be for the sole purpose of carrying into effect its general provisions, without extending, expanding, or
amending the law itself.
b. Exceptions:
i. Those which are merely internal in nature regulating personnel of the agency and not the public
ii. Those that are intended to construe or interpret the particular law or statute being enforced
iii. Those that are intended to determine some facts or state of things from which the enforcement of the law shall depend
5. Quasi-Judicial Power (power of adjudication) – the power to investigate facts, hold hearings, and draw conclusions
from them as a basis for their official action and to exercise discretion of a judicial nature. Quasi-judicial
adjudication is a determination of rights, privileges, and duties resulting in a decision or order which applies to a
situation. (Example, the National Labor Relations Commission adjudicates labor cases)
a. Doctrine of Primary Jurisdiction – means that the judicial action of a case is deferred pending the
determination of some issues which properly belong to an administrative body because their expertise,
specialized skills, knowledge and resources as required for the resolution of the factual or non-legal
matters. This requires substantial evidence, or such evidence that a reasonable mind might accept as
adequate to support a conclusion, the quality of evidence necessary for a court to affirm a decision of
an administrative body.
b. Trial-type hearing or a full blown hearing is needed when adjudicative fact is to be established.
i. Determinative – the purpose is to determine the facts which would qualify the positive application of the law being enforced,
administered, or implemented
Where the law provides for the remedies against the action of an administrative board, body or officer, relief to courts against
such action can be sought only after exhausting all the remedies provided for. As a general rule, the doctrine of exhaustion of
administrative remedies applies only when there is an express legal provision requiring such administrative step as a condition
precedent to the taking of an action in court.