Administrative Law & Ethics

PA-314
Nusrat Jahan Nipu
Lecturer
Dept. of Public Administration
University of Barishal
Control of Administrative Power:
Administration is a means of public welfare. The people have a live
interest in seeing that public administration is both responsible and
efficient. The public officials should be made responsible to appropriate
authorities. There are certain controls through which administrative
responsibility is enforced.
 Broadly speaking, there are two main types of controls, namely,-

(i) External controls: The external controls operate upon the

administration from the outside. The external control over public
administration may be considered from four main standpoints, namely – of
the executive, of the legislature, of the judiciary and of the community,
respectively.
(ii) Internal (or administrative) controls: The internal controls are
those which operate within the administration itself. These are fitted into the
administrative machinery and work automatically as the machinery moves.
A. Executive Control over Administration:
Every official is responsible to and under the control of his
administrative superiors who are known as Ministers in a
Parliamentary Government. The minister is responsible for all
what goes within his department. The minister or executive
exercises control over administration through the following
methods:
 Political Direction

 Budgetary System

 Recruitment System

 Executive Legislation
Parliamentary Control over Public
Administration:
In all systems, parliamentary or presidential, control of the
administration by the legislature is important. In all systems,
parliamentary or presidential, control of the administration by
the legislature is important.
 Law making process

 Question hour

 Budgetary system

 Audit and Report: CAG

 Debate and discussion

 Appointment of Committees
The Constitution states that the Cabinet shall be collectively responsible to Parliament.
The Rules of Procedure of Parliament have prescribed a number of devices to make the
Government answerable and accountable to Parliament. These include:
Questions , Half-an-hour Discussion, Call Attention , Resolution, Discussion for short
duration, Motion (General), Adjournment Motion, No-confidence Motion.
 The MPs can ask questions to the Prime Minister, other ministers and the parliament
secretariat. The Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQT) was introduced in the
seventh parliament. Rule 41 of the Rules of Procedures stipulates that the first hour of
every sitting shall be available for the asking and answering of questions, and on every
Wednesday of the session, an extra 30 minutes will be made available for PMQT.
 Rule 59 provides opportunity for short notice questions on matters of public
importance. Discussions in the parliament can take place in different ways. They
include half‐an‐hour discussion (Rule 60), discussion on matters of public importance
for short duration (Rule 68), and calling attention of ministers to matters of urgent
public importance (Rule 71).
Limitations of Legislative Control
 First, the size of the legislature is large one. On account of its large size it
cannot exercise effective control.
 Second, the members of the legislature are laymen whereas the members
of administration are very technical and specialized.
 Third, its decisions are general and it is greatly dependent upon the
executive for the content of legislation.
 Fourth, the majority of the members belong to the ruling party and there
are few chances of no-confidence motion or censure motion being passed
against the government.
 Fifth, the financial committees do post mortem work. They check the
expenditure after it has been incurred.
 Sixth, in parliamentary system the legislature is a tool in the hands of the
cabinet.
 Last, most of its criticism is political, the chief end being to dislodge the
government.
C. Judicial Control over Administration:
Judicial control over administration means the powers of the courts to
examine the legality of the officials’ acts and thereby to safeguard the rights
of the citizens. It also implies the right of an aggrieved citizen to bring a civil
or criminal suit in a court of law against a public servant for wrong done to
him in the course of discharge of his public duty. No hard and fast principles
can be laid down for judicial intervention, but the courts intervene in
administrative cases on the following grounds:
 Lack of Jurisdiction

 Error of Law

 Error of Fact-Finding

 Abuse of Authority

 Error of Authority
Contd.
**Judicial Remedies for Suing the Government:
Judicial control can be in the form of suing the State or the
Government itself or the public official concerned for his
wrongful acts. The position regarding the suability of the
Government and public officials differs in the countries
following the system of Rule of Law or the Administrative Law
(Droit Administrative).
Extraordinary Judicial Remedies:
In addition to the judicial remedies of suing the government or
its officials, citizens have various extraordinary remedies (e.g.
writs) also against the excesses of public officials.