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75 U. Pa. L. Rev. 614 (1926-1927)
Task of Administrative Law

handle is hein.journals/pnlr75 and id is 630 raw text is: THE TASK OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW* The widening area of what in effect is law-making authority, exercised by officials whose actions are not subject to ordinary court review, constitutes perhaps the most striking contemporary tendency of the Anglo-American legal order. The massive vol- umes of Statutory Rules and Orders, published annually since 189o,l testify to the pervasive domain of delegated legislation in Great Britain. The formulation and publication of executive orders and rules and regulations are in this country still in a primitive stage, which only serves to render more porten- tous the operation of these forms of law. But the range of control conferred by Congress and the State legislatures upon subsidiary law-making bodies, variously denominated as heads of departments, commissions and boards, penetrates in the United States, as in Great Britain 2 and the Dominions, the whole gamut of human affairs. Hardly a measure passes Congress the effective execution of which is not conditioned upon rules and regulations emanating from the enforcing authorities. These administrative complements are euphemistically called filling in the details of a policy set forth in statutes. But the details are of the essence; they give meaning and content to vague contours. The control of banking, insurance, public utilities, finance, industry, the professions, health and morals, in sum, the manifold response of government to the forces and needs of modern society, is building up a body of laws not written by legislatures, and of adjudications not made by courts and not sub- ject to their revision. These powers are lodged in a vast congeries of agencies. We are in the midst of a process, largely uncon- scious and certainly unscientific, of adjusting the exercise of these powers to the traditional system of Anglo-American law and *This paper will appear as a General Introduction to a forthcoming series of Harvard Studies on Administrative Law. 'See J. A. Fairlie, Administrative Procedure in Great Britain, 13 UNIVER- SITY OF ILLINOIS, STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES No. 3 (Sept. 1925). ' See, e. g., Arthur Louri; Administrative Law in South Africa, 44 S. A. L. J. 10 (927). (614)

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