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Effective Law from a Regulatory and Administrative Law Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2018

Abstract

The question of effective law has been studied in many fields of research, such as philosophy and sociology of law, law and economics, public policy and behavioural sciences. This article aims to treat it as a genuine administrative law issue which is currently having a significant impact on administrative procedures, especially affecting the way in which rules are adopted and implemented. Furthermore, the article attempts to reconcile conflicting views in existing literature on the meaning of effective law and on which factors lead to effectiveness by proposing an integrated approach: starting from a regulatory perspective it considers both traditional determinants of effectiveness, ie compliance and enforcement, as well as the emerging aspect of outcomes, focused on the idea that a rule can be defined as effective when its desired effects have been achieved and the public interest which justifies the rule has been safeguarded without producing unwanted or disfunctional consequences.

Far from being simply a decisional problem for institutions (arising in legislative, regulatory and administrative procedures), effectiveness calls for a “steering administration” and represents a criterion for decision-making, since expected effectiveness can be used in the logic of “whether” and “how” institutions should arrive at decisions.

Type
Symposium on Effective Law and Regulation
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 

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Footnotes

*

Università Roma Tre.

References

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56 Flückiger, supra, note 54, 95.

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65 Alcott, supra, note 6, 229.

66 Council Recommendation 2009/C 296/02 on Smoke-free Environments (2009).

67 Commission Staff Working Report, Document SWD 56 final/2 on the implementation of the Council Recommendation of 30 November 2009 on Smoke-free Environments (2013).

68 ibid.

69 European Parliament and the Council Directive 2014/40/EU on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco and related products and repealing Directive 2001/37/EC Text with EEA relevance (2014).

70 On the dissociation between “legal validity [and] mere enactment” see Pino, G, “The place of legal positivism in contemporary constitutional states” (1999) 18(5) Law and Philosophy – Special Issue: Neil MacCormick (ed), Law, Facts, and Values 513, 535 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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72 On this point see Tyler, supra, note 25, 4: “normative commitment through legitimacy means obeying a law because one feels that the authority enforcing the law has the right to dictate behavior” and Tyler, TR, “The Psychology of Legitimacy: A Relational Perspective on Voluntary Deference to Authorities” (1997) 1(4) Personality and Social Psychology Review 323 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 See N Leff, “Economic Development Through Bureaucratic Corruption” (1964) November, The American Behavioral Scientist 8, where corruption itself is described as an “extra-legal institution used by individuals or groups to gain influence over the action of the bureaucracy”. Criminal organisations and mafia groups have been defined as “extra-legal protectors or quasi-law enforcers”: Wang, P, “Organised crime in a transitional economy: the resurgence of the criminal underworld in contemporary China” in G Barak (ed), The Routledge International Handbook of the Crimes of the Powerful (Routledge 2015) 404 Google Scholar.

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76 See Ogus, supra, note 36, 330–331.

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78 Scholz, supra, note 28. See also Hawkins, K, “Bargain and bluff: compliance strategy and deterrence in the enforcement of regulation” (1983) 5(1) Law and Policy Quarterly 35 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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88 On this topic, see N Rangone, “Making Law Effective: Behavioural Insigths into Compliance”, in this issue. See also Gino, F, “Why the US Government Is Embracing Behavioural Sciences” (2015) Harvard Business Review September 18 Google Scholar.

89 On this point see Jolls, Sunstein and Thaler, supra, note 29; see also Akerlof, GA and Shille, RJ, Animal Spirits. How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism (Princeton University Press 2009)Google Scholar.

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97 See HM Revenue & Customs, General Anti-Abuse Rule Guidance (28 March 2018) B3.1: “The primary policy objective of the GAAR is to deter taxpayers from entering into abusive arrangements, and to deter would-be promoters from promoting such arrangements”.

98 In general, see Hodges, C, Ethical Business Regulation: Understanding the Evidence (Department for Business Innovation & Skills, Better Regulation Delivery Office February 2016) 9 Google Scholar: “Where actions are immoral, or accountability as described above has not been observed, a proportionate response should be made. Enforcement policies should generally avoid the concept of deterrence, since it has limited effect on behaviour, conflicts with a learning-based performance culture, and is undemocratic”.

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100 OECD, Cutting Red Tape – National Strategies for Administrative Simplification (2006).

101 On this point, HM Treasury, Hampton Report, Reducing administrative burdens: effective inspection and enforcement (March 2005).

102 See Osborne, D and Gaebler, T, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector (Addison Wesley 1992)Google Scholar and the Report From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less. Report of the National Performance Review (1993).

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104 ibid, 12.

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106 ibid, 52.

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114 See Meltsner, AJ, Policy Analysts in the Bureaucracy (University of California Press 1976) 255 Google Scholar: “Effective communication can lead to promotion or demotion, to acceptance or rejection of one’s ideas, to success or failure”.

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116 Stigler, supra, note 53, 56.

117 OECD, Regulatory Enforcement and Inspections (OECD 2014) 12 Google Scholar: “enforcement will be taken in its broad meaning, covering all activities of state structures (or structures delegated by the state) aimed at promoting compliance and reaching regulations’ outcomes […]. These activities may include: information, guidance and prevention; data collection and analysis; inspections; enforcement actions in the narrower sense, ie warnings, improvement notices, fines, prosecutions etc. To distinguish the two meanings of enforcement, ‘regulatory enforcement’ will refer to the broad understanding, and ‘enforcement actions’ to the narrower sense”.

118 On this point see Nozick, supra, note 115.

119 Olivecrona, supra, note 19, 140 onwards.

120 On this point, see Zimring, FE and Hawkins, GJ, Deterrence. The Legal Threat in Crime Control (University of Chicago Press 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Paternoster, R, “The deterrent effect of the perceived certainty and severity of punishment: a review of the evidence and issues” (1987) Justice Quarterly 173 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

121 On this point see Tyler, supra, note 77, in particular 290, where long-term compliance is described as “more strongly voluntary in character”

122 Stigler, supra, note 53, 56.

123 Olivecrona, supra, note 19, 123 et sqq.

124 Braithwaite, J, Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation (Oxford University Press 2002) 29 Google Scholar: “responsive regulation is that governments should be responsive to the conduct of those they seek to regulate in deciding whether a more or less interventionist response is needed”. See also Baldwin and Black, supra, note 45, 62: “The essence of ‘responsive regulation’ is a ‘tit for tat’ approach in which regulators enforce in the first instance by compliance strategies, such as persuasion and education, but apply more punitive deterrent responses (escalating up a pyramid of such responses) when the regulated firm fails to behave as desired”.

125 Tyler, supra, note 25, 19.

126 Blanc, supra, note 93, 72.

127 On this point, see Ernest-Jones, M, Nettle, D and Bateson, M, “Effects of Eye Images on Everyday Cooperative Behavior: A Field Experiment” (2011) 32 Evolution and Human Behavior 172, 173 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

128 ibid: “there have been many demonstrations that the physical presence of other people in the room, or other non-verbal cues of proximity or visibility, produces more cooperative behaviour”.

129 See Hampton Report, supra, note 101.

130 See Braithwaite, J, Improving Compliance: Strategies and Practical Applications in OECD Countries (OECD 1993) 9 Google Scholar. See also Tyler, supra, note 77, 283.

131 On this point see Bardach and Kagan, supra, note 95, 123.

132 See Blanc, supra, note 93. See also OECD, Regulatory Enforcement and Inspections, supra, note 117, 11.

133 On this point see De Benedetto, M, “Corruption and controls” (2015) 17(4) European Journal of Law Reform 479, 488 CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “Controls have a hybrid nature: not only are they a way to combat or prevent corruption but also they are real occasions for corrupt transactions”.

134 See Baldwin, Cave and Lodge, supra, note 50, 281.

135 See OECD, Regulatory Enforcement and Inspections, supra, note 117.

136 On this point, see Rangone, supra, note 58, 69.

137 On this point see Coglianese, C, “Empirical Analysis and Administrative Law” (2002) University of Illinois Law Review 1111, 1113 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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140 See Gneezy, U and Rustichini, A, “A Fine Is a Price” (2000) 29(1) The Journal of Legal Studies 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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147 OECD, Overcoming Barriers to Administrative Simplification Strategies: Guidance for Policy Makers (2009) 44 Google Scholar. See also OECD, Reccomendation on Improving the Quality of Government Regulation (1995) and The OECD Report on Regulatory Reform; Synthesis (1997) 8.

148 Ogus, A, Regulation. Legal Form and Economic Theory (Clarendon Press 1994) 90 Google Scholar. See also Hawkins and Thomas, supra, note 53, 173.

149 Baldwin, Cave and Lodge, supra, note 50, 38.

150 OECD, Reducing the Risk of Policy Failure, supra, note 53. See also Voermans, supra, note 53, 41.

151 Coglianese, supra, note 8, 9.

152 Xantaki, H, “Quality of legislation: an achievable universal concept or a utopian pursuit?” in M Tavares Almeida (ed), Quality of Legislation (Nomos 2011) 81 Google Scholar. See also Weatherill, S, “The challenge of better regulation” in S Weatherill (ed), Better Regulation (Hart 2007) 19 Google Scholar.

153 See European Commission, Communication COM(2012) 746 final on EU Regulatory fitness (2012) 3.

154 ibid, 11.

155 De Benedetto, M, “Maintenance of Rules” in U Karpen and H Xantaki (eds), Legislation and Legisprudence in Europe. A Comprehensive Guide (Hart 2017) 215 Google Scholar.

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157 See Radaelli, C et al, “Comparing the content of regulatory impact assessments in the UK and the EU” (2013) 33(6) Public Money & Management 445 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

158 An interesting comparison is available in the Australian Government, Productivity Commission Research Report, Identifying and Evaluating Regulation Reforms, Appendix K, How do different countries manage regulation? (December 2011).

159 See Staronova, K, “Regulatory Impact Assessment: Formal Institutionalization and Practice” (2010) 30(1) Journal of Public Policy 117 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

160 The loi constitutionelle 23 Juillet 2008, art 24 established that: “Le Parlement vote les lois, contrôle l’action du Gouvernement et évalue les politiques publiques”.

161 See, for example, Directive 2009/72/EC concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity, art 35 (Designation and independence of regulatory authorities), “5. In order to protect the independence of the regulatory authority, Member States shall in particular ensure that: (a) the regulatory authority can take autonomous decisions, independently from any political body, and has separate annual budget allocations, with autonomy in the implementation of the allocated budget, and adequate human and financial resources to carry out its duties”.

162 The United Nations and the Council of Europe anti-corruption conventions established “criteria for effective specialised anti-corruption bodies”: they should be characterised by independence, specialisation, adequate training and resources. On this point see also OECD, Specialised Anti-Corruption Institutions. Review of Models (OECD 2008) 5 Google Scholar.

163 OECD, Backgroud Document on Oversight Bodies for Regulatory Reform (OECD 2007) 2 Google Scholar: the “whole-of-government approach for regulatory policy […] requires coordination of different institutions involved at different levels of government and the commitment to assign adequate resources to them”.

164 See Knight, FH, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (Beard Books 2002) 20 Google Scholar, where he distinguished between uncertainty and risk by defining risk “proper” as “measurable uncertainty”.

165 In the more general framework of the present article, on this point it would also be important to refer to the huge literature on risk regulation. Among other titles, see Beck, U, Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity (Sage 1986)Google Scholar. A health perspective characterises Graham, JD, Green, LC and Roberts, MJ, In Search of Safety. Chemicals and Cancer Risk (Harvard University Press 1991)Google Scholar. See also Breyer, S, Breaking the Vicious Circle: Towards Effective Risk Regulation (Harvard University Press 1993)Google Scholar; Hood, Rothstein and Baldwin, supra, note 47; Sunstein, CR, Risk and Reason: Safety, Law, and the Environment (Cambridge University Press 2002)Google Scholar; Black, J, “The emergence of risk-based regulation and the new public management in the United Kingdom” (2005) Public Law 512 Google Scholar. See, finally OECD, Risk and Regulation: Improving the Governance of Risk (Oecd Publishing 2010).Google Scholar

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168 See Luhmann, N, Legitimation durch Verfahren (Suhrkamp 1983)Google Scholar.

169 Wollmann, H, “Utilization of Evaluation Results in Policy-Making and Administration: A Challenge to Political Science Research” (2016) 16(3) Croatian and Comparative Public Administration 433 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

170 Supra, note 153, 4.

171 See Craig, P, Administrative Law (Sweet & Maxwell 2008) 111 Google Scholar: “measuring institutional effectiveness is always difficult”.

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174 Pierre, J and Peters, B Guy, Governance, Politics and the State (Macmillan 2000) 1 Google Scholar: “the capacity of government to make and implement policy”.

175 Bogason, P, “Postmodernism and American Public Administration in the 1990s” (2001) 33(2) Administration & Society 165, 167 CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “how to make the public sector work better”. See also Rhodes, RAW, “The New Governance: Governing without Government” (1996) 44 Political Studies 652 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

176 OECD, Guiding Principles for Regulatory Quality and Performance (2005) 1 Google Scholar: “Isolated efforts cannot take the place of a coherent, whole-of-government approach [...] ‘Regulatory quality and performance’ captures the dynamic, ongoing whole-of-government approach to implementation”.

177 On the problem of “lack of consistency, coordination and coherence between agencies – lack of uniform guidelines and approaches between inspectors”, see Blanc, supra, note 93, 2.

178 On this point see Coglianese, supra, note 137, 1113. See also Cassese, S, “New paths for administrative law: A manifesto” (2012) 10(3) International Journal of Constitutional Law 603 CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “a new administrative law is developing, due to a process of change, modernization, and reform […] This new administrative law is – in this view – the product of the new role of the state as a promoter, as a facilitator, as a risk regulator, and as the helmsman of economy and society”.

179 See Hoffmann-Riem, supra, note 41, 214.

180 See also Voßkuhle, A and Wischmeyer, T, “The NeueVerwaltungrechtswissenschaft against the backdrop of traditional administrative law scholarship in Germany”, in S Rose-Ackerman, PL Lindseth and B Emerson (eds), Comparative Administrative Law (2nd edn, Edwar Elgar 2017) 93 Google Scholar.

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182 Hawkins, K, Law as Last Resort: Prosecution Decision-making in a Regulatory Agency (Oxford University Press, 2001) 39 Google Scholar.

183 Ayres and Braithwaite, supra, note 45, 101: “a requirement for breaking out of the sterile contest between deregulation and stronger regulation is innovation in the regulatory design”.

184 On this point see Diver, CS, “The optimal precision of administrative rules” (1983) 93(1) Yale Law Jornal 65 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Baldwin, R, “Why rules don’t work” (1990) 53(3) The Modern Law Review 321 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

185 See De Benedetto, Martelli and Rangone, supra, note 10, p 28. On this point see other references in notes 156–159.

186 ibid, 72.

187 Lipsky, supra, note 144, 13.

188 Blanc, supra, note 93, 72.

189 On this point, see della Cananea, G, Due Process of Law beyond the State. Requirements of administrative procedure (Oxford University Press 2017)Google Scholar.

190 See McCubbins, MD, Noll, RG and Weingast, BR, “Administrative procedures as instruments of political control” (1987) 3(2) Journal of Law, Economics & Organization 243, 244 Google Scholar.

191 On the “analytic management of regulation” see Stewart, RB, “Administrative Law in the Twenty-First Century” (2003) 78(2) New York University Law Review 437, 445 Google Scholar.

192 Coglianese, C, Kilmartin, H and Mendelson, E, “Transparency and public participation in the rulemaking process: recommendations for the new administration” (2009) 77(4) George Washington Law Review 924, 927 Google Scholar.

193 See Scholz, supra, note 25, 264: “Improve Procedural Fairness. […] The perception of fair treatment and due process enhanced compliance even when orders imposed considerable costs”.

194 Stewart, supra, note 191, 445.

195 Supra, note 153.

196 Herweijer, supra, note 43, 15: “to determine whether decisions are effective we need to compare. We might, for example, compare the average speed of cars before and after the introduction of the speed limit”.

197 European Commission, Communication COM(2002) 704 final on Towards a reinforced culture of consultation and dialogue – General principles and minimum standards for consultation of interested parties by the Commission, 5: consultation “serves a dual purpose by helping to improve the quality of the policy outcome and at the same time enhancing the involvement of interested parties and the public at large”.

198 Coglianese, supra, note 137, 1113.

199 See De Benedetto, supra, note 90, 55.

200 See Mashaw, JL, “Structuring a ‘dense complexity’: accountability and the project of administrative law” (2005) Issues in Legal Scholarship 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

201 Sunstein, CR, After the Rights Revolution. Reconceiving the Regulatory State (Harvard University Press 1990) 103 Google Scholar. On this point see also Stewart, RB, “The Reformation of American Administrative Law” (1975) 88(8) Harvard Law Review 1669, 1713 CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “[...] comparative overrepresentation of regulated or client interests in the process of agency decision results in a persistent policy bias in favour of these interests”. See also Ogus, supra, note 36, 341 where he argues that the same consultations are occasions to “increase the opportunity for corrupt transactions”.

202 Stewart, supra, note 191, 446.

203 Teubner, supra, note 50, 306.

204 On this point see Osborne and Gaebler, supra, note 102. See also From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less, supra, note 102. See finally Osborne, D and Hutchinson, P, The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis (Basic Books 2004)Google Scholar.

205 See OECD, Reducing the Risk of Policy Failure, supra, note 53. See also Hawkins and Thomas, supra, note 53, 7

206 See Hoffmann-Riem, supra, note 41, 241: “the approach to reality and thus to diagnostic and knowledge and above all dealing with the uncertain also has to be ‘learnt’”.

207 In this sense, Beck, supra, note 165, 180: “criteria must be discovered for how the unpredictability of consequences is produced and can be avoided”. See also Pardo, J Esteve, Técnica, riesgo y derecho: tratamiento del riesgo tecnológico en el derecho ambiental (Ariel 1999)Google Scholar.

208 Hoffmann-Riem, supra, note 41, 214.

209 Coglianese, C (ed), Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in US Regulation (University of Pennsylvania Press 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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211 Kickert, WJM, Klijn, E-H and Koppenjan, J, Managing Complex Networks – Strategies for the Public Sector (Sage 1997) 10 Google Scholar and 44 where “coordinating strategies of actors with different goals and preferences” are mentioned. On this aspect see C Coglianese and E Mendelson, “Meta-regulation and self-regulation” in Baldwin, Cave and Lodge, supra, note 47.

212 Rhodes, RAW, “Recovering the Craft of Public Administration” (2016) 76(4) Public Administration Review 638 CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “it is a question of what works, of what skills fit in a particular context”.

213 Edelman, MJ, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (University of Illinois Press 1985) 181 Google Scholar: “The testing of works and its results remains a testing against tangible results not satisfaction with pipedreams”; see also Stolz, BA, “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978: The Role of Symbolic Politics” (2002) 24(3) Law & Policy 269, 270 CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “The symbolic perspective also assumes that the substance of an act is less important than the audience’s perception or reaction to it. Moreover, at times, whether or not legislation is enacted is less important than the fact that legislation has been introduced”.

214 Dwyer, JP, “The Pathology of Symbolic Legislation” (1990) 17 Ecology Law Quarterly 233, 234 Google Scholar: “The most significant problem with symbolic legislation, however, is not delay; it is the resulting distortions in the regulatory process. Symbolic legislation hobbles the regulatory process by polarizing public discussion in agency proceedings and legislative hearings”.

215 ibid: “By making promises that cannot be kept, and by leaving no middle ground for accommodation, the legislature makes it more difficult to reach a political compromise (either in the agency or the legislature) that would produce a functional regulatory program”.

216 On this aspect see Rose-Ackerman, Lindseth and Emerson, supra, note 180, 1: “The Germans speak of administrative law as ‘concretized’ constitutional law”.

217 Kelsen, supra, note 19, 255.

218 Pound, supra, note 112, 35.