Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T10:49:08.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reconceptualising specialist environment courts and tribunals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Ceri Warnock
Ceri Warnock*
Affiliation:
University of Otago, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Specialist environment courts and tribunals (SECs) are, in the main, reflective of highly dynamic forms of adjudication, mixing judicial forms with powers more traditionally found in the executive. However, despite their novel legal nature the literature on SECs is predominantly promotional and it fails to address the challenges to legitimacy and governance engendered by these institutions. Nor does it evince a robust theory of environmental adjudication. These omissions not only impoverish the discourse but practice unsupported by theory is creating an unstable edifice. To illustrate this point the difficulties experienced in New Zealand are examined. The argument is made that only by confronting the challenges created by SECs can we begin to lay the foundations for a new theoretical model capable of explaining and accommodating environmental adjudication.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 391 - 417
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank the New Zealand Law Foundation for funding this research, Liz Fisher, Brian Preston and Alison Young for their generous comments on an earlier version of this paper, and contributors to the Environmental Law section at the 2015 SLS Conference for their thoughtful questions. All views and errors are however the author's own.

References

1. P Cane Administrative Tribunals and Adjudication (Oxford: Hart, 2010), pp 47–48.

2. For an overview see eg A Leggatt Tribunals for Users – One System, One Service (Department for Constitutional Affairs, 2001) (UK); New Zealand Law Commission, Delivering Justice for All (Wellington, NZ: NZLC Wellington, 2004); Administrative Review Council, Better Decisions: Commonwealth Merits Review Tribunals (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1995); R Creyke (ed) Tribunals in the Common Law World (Annandale: The Federation Press 2008); KYW Holst ‘A good score? Examining twenty years of drug courts in the United States and abroad’ (2010) 45 Va U L Rev 73.

3. Eg H Genn ‘Tribunals and informal justice’ (1993) 56 MLR 393; M Adler ‘Tribunal reform: proportionate dispute resolution and the pursuit of administrative justice’ (2006) 69 MLR 958; N Wikeley ‘Burying Bell: managing the judicialisation of social security tribunals’ (2000) 63 MLR 475; R Thomas ‘Evaluating Ttibunal adjudication: administrative justice and asylum appeals’ (2005) 25 LS 462; J Peay Tribunals on Trial: A Study of Decision-making under the Mental Health Act 1983 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989).

4. G Richardson and H Genn ‘Tribunals in transition: resolution or adjudication?’ [2007] PL 116, 118. Notable exceptions include Cane, above n 1; M Elliot and R Thomas ‘Tribunal Justice and Proportionate Dispute Resolution’ (2012) 71 CLJ 297; and the literature on Article I – Article III Courts in the US, eg E Pfander ‘Article I tribunals, Article III courts and the judicial power of the United States’ (2004) 118 Harv L Rev 645; TE Baker ‘Federal court practice and procedure: a third branch bibliography’ (1999) 30 Texas Tech L Rev 909, 1103–1114.

5. HW Arthurs Without the Law: Administrative Justice and Legal Pluralism in Nineteenth-Century England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1985); RH Fallon ‘Of legislative courts, administrative agencies, and Article III’ (1987–1988) [101] Harv L Rev 916.

6. See text accompanying nn182–218 below.

7. See nn 18–38 below.

8. G Pring and C Pring, Greening Justice: Creating and Improving Environmental Courts and Tribunals (Washington: World Resources Institute 2009).

9. J Resnik ‘Reinventing Courts as Democratice Institutions’ (2014) 143 Daedalus 9, 9–10; G Pring and C Pring ‘Twenty-first century environmental dispute resolution – is there an ‘ECT’ in your future?’ (2015) 33 J Energy Nat Resources & Envtl L 10.

10. Eg TCPA Appeal Board (forerunner to the NZEnvC) was concerned with matters having ‘far reaching effects’ greatly exceeding the ‘run-of-the-mill business that occupied the Supreme Court day by day’, 375 NZPD 3589.

11. E Fisher ‘Unpacking the toolbox: or why the public/private divide is important in EC environmental law’ in J B Auby and M Freedland (eds) The Public Law/Private Law Divide: Une Entente Assez Cordiale (Paris: LGDJ Diffuseur 2004), 240.

12. Ranging from WA Robson Justice and Administrative Law (London: Stevens, 2nd edn, 1947), 328, to HW Arthurs ‘Rethinking administrative law: a slightly dicey business’ (1979) 17 Osgoode Hall L J 1, 42, and Cane, above n 1, p 21.

13. JA Farmer, Tribunals and Government (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1974), p 189; Genn ‘Tribunals and informal justice’, 394; RE Wraith and PG Hutchesson Administrative Tribunals (London: Allen and Unwin 1973), p 15; New Zealand Law Commission, Tribunals in New Zealand (Wellington: NZLC, 2008), p 32 ; for the difficulties the whole of the administrative state creates for meta-theorising see C Sunstein and A Vermeule ‘Libertarian administrative law’ (2015) 82 U Chi L Rev 393, 471.

14. Cane, above n 1, pp 2–3

15. D Lawrence ‘The need for EIA theory building’ (1997) 17 Environmental Impact Assessment Review 79, 83.

16. National Research Council Models in Environmental Regulatory Decision Making (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2007), p 31.

17. E Fisher, P Pascual and W Wagner ‘Understanding environmental models in their legal and regulatory context’ (2010) 22 JEL 251, 266.

18. N Robinson ‘Ensuring access to justice through environmental courts’ (2012) 29 Pace Envtl L Rev 363, 381.

19. Pring and Pring, above n 8, p 10.

20. Eg Queensland Planning and Environment Court was established in 1965; New South Wales Land and Environment Court (NSWLEC) became a superior court of record in 1979; NZEnvC has existed in a similar form since 1953.

21. GN Gill ‘Environmental justice in India: the National Green Tribunal and expert members’ (2016) 5 TEL 175.

22. A Wang and J Gao ‘Environmental courts and the development of environmental public interest litigation in China’ (2010) 3 J Ct Innovation 37.

23. R Macrory ‘The long and winding road – towards an environmental court in England and Wales’ (2013) 25 JEL 371.

24. Ping and Pring, above n 8, p 3.

25. They may be created by the Constitution (eg Constitution of Kenya Art art 162(2)(b) (2010)), or by special legislation (eg Land and Environment Court Act 1979 (NSW)) or by Supreme Courts (eg Administrative Order Re: Designation of Special Courts to Hear, Try and Decide Environmental Cases, S.C., No23-2003 (2008) (Phil)).

26. Pring and Pring, above n 8, pp 21–22.

27. New Zealand Department of Justice The Citizen and Power: Administrative Tribunals (Wellington: Government Printer, 1965), 10; BJ Preston ‘Characteristics of successful environmental courts and tribunals’ (2014) 26 JEL 365, 369–372; S Abed de Zavala et al. ‘An institute for enhancing effective environmental adjudication’ (2010) 3 J Ct Innovation 1, 6–8.

28. Gillies (AP) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Scotland) [2006] 2, [38]; see also V Madner ‘The Austrian Environmental Senate’ (2010) 3 J Ct Innovation 23, 26; P Cane ‘Merits review and judicial review – the ATT as trojan horse’ (2000) 28 Fed L Rev 213, 218; cf R. (Alconbury Developments Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions [2001] UKHL 23.

29. Eg NSWLEC; NZEnvC; Umweltsenat (Austria); Vaasa Administrative Court (Finland); Mark- och miljödomstolar (Sweden); National Green Tribunal (India).

30. Pring and Pring, above n 8, p 85.

31. See nn 36–37 below.

32. Pring and Pring, above n 8, p 26; BJ Preston ‘Benefits of judicial specialization in environmental law: the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales as a case study’ (2011-2012) 29 Pace Envtl L Rev 396, 401–402.

33. E Fisher ‘Administrative law, pluralism and legal construction of merits review in Australian courts and tribunals’ in L Pearson, C Harlow and M Taggart (eds) Administrative Law in a Changing State: Essays in Honour of Mark Aronson (Oxford: Hart, 2008).

34. Pring and Pring, above n 8, p 27.

35. M Shapiro Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 1981), 1.

36. Eg NSWLEC; NZEnvC; Mark- och miljödomstolar (Sweden).

37. Eg Environment and Land Court (Kenya).

38. Preston, above n 27, pp 372–377.

39. BJ Preston ‘The effectiveness of the law in providing access to environmental justice: an introduction’ (11th IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Colloquium, Hamilton New Zealand, June 2013); G Walker, Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence and Politics (London: Routledge 2012).

40. H Woolf ‘Are the judiciary environmentally myopic? ’ (1992) 4 JEL 1; P McAuslan ‘The Role of courts and other judicial type bodies in environmental management ’ (1991) 3 JEL 195; Preston, above n 32.

41. C Warnock and M Baker-Galloway Focus on Resource Management Law (Wellington: LexisNexis 2015), ch 3; BJ Preston ‘The role of the judiciary in promoting sustainable development: the experience of Asia and the Pacific’ (2005–2006) 9 Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law 109.

42. S Fulton ‘The rule of law and environmental adjudication’ (International Symposium on Environmental Courts and Tribunals, Pace Law School New York, 1 April 2011).

43. Z Minchun and Z Bao ‘Specialised environmental courts in China: status quo, challenges and responses’ (2012) 30 J En Nat Res L 361, 368.

44. HG Davide Jr and S Vinson ‘Green courts initiative in the Philippines’ (2010) 3 J Ct Innovation 121, 130.

45. Preston, above n 32, 397–398.

46. U Bjallas ‘Experiences of Sweden's environmental courts’ (2010) 3 J Ct Innovation 177, 183.

47. Gill, above n 21, 198.

48. SG Sigurdson ‘Courts and tribunals through a sustainability lens: questions and new expectations’ in S-L Hsu and P Molinari (eds) Sustainable Development and the Law: People – Environment – Culture (Montreal: Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice 2008), p 40.

49. Eg Resource Management Act 1991 (NZ) (‘RMA’), s 5; Sustainable Planning Act 2009 (Queensland) s 3 and Environmental Protection Act 1994 (Queensland) s 3; Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW), s 5; Milojobalk [Environmental Code] 1999 (Sweden) pt 1, ch 1, s 1; Environment and Land Court Act 2011 (Kenya) s 18.

50. Preston, above n 27 , 391; LA Stein Principles of Planning Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), ch 5; L Pearson ‘Policy, principles and guidance: tribunal rule-making’ (2012) 3 PLR 16, 16.

51. Preston, above n 27 , 391.

52. de Zavala et al., above n 27, 9–10.

53. Stark v Auckland Regional Council [1994] 3 NZLR 614 (HC), 617; see also Law Commission, above n 2, 221

54. Davide Jr and Vinson, above n 44, 127–129.

55. Domenico Amirante ‘Environmental courts in comparative perspective: preliminary reflections on the National Green Tribunal of India’ (2012) 29 Pace Envtl L Rev 441, 459.

56. Milijoministeriet ‘Decision-making Processes in Denmark’ (1998–2011) para 4.1.3 see http://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/1995/87-7944-324-9/html/4.htm (accessed 10 May 2015).

57. Shirley Primary School v Christchurch City Council [1999] NZRMA 66 (NZEnvC).

58. Ibid; Gray v Minister of Planning and Others (2006) 152 LGERA 258 (LECNSW); Relator Mon. Villa Boas Cueva AgRg RE No 206748/SP (21 February 2013) (Supremo Tribunal de Justica (Brazil)); Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10 SCC 664 (Supreme Court of India).

59. Sustain Our Sounds Inc v New Zealand King Salmon Company Ltd [2014] NZSC 40.

60. Metropolitan Manila Development Authority v Concerned Residents of Manila Bay G.R. Nos. 171947-48 (SC Dec 18, 2008) (Philippines).

61. FWM McElrea ‘The role of restorative justice in RMA prosecutions’ (2004) 12(3) Resource Management Journal 1.

62. G Pring and C Pring ‘Increase in environmental courts and tribunals prompts new global institute’ (2010) 3 J Ct Innovation 11, 19.

63. Ibid, 20; M Rackemann ‘Environmental decision-making, the rule of law and environmental justice’ [2011] Resource Management Theory and Practice 37, 64–67.

64. Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board v M.V. Naidu (1999) 2 SCC 718; Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board II v M.V. Naidu (2001) 2 SCC 62 (India).

65. Davide Jr and Vinson, above n 44, 123–124.

66. Wang and Gao, above n 22, 37, 44; cf: Minchun and Bao, above n 43, 361, 376; J Liu ‘Environmental justice with Chinese characteristics: recent developments in using environmental public interest litigation to strengthen environmental justice’ (2012) 7 Flor A M L R 225, 254–258.

67. JO Freedman, Crisis and Legitimacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); cf P Cane ‘Review of executive action’ in M Tushnet and P Cane (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp 150–151.

68. New Zealand Law Commission Tribunals in New Zealand: An Issues Paper (Wellington: NZLC IP6, 2007), p 35.

69. Preston, above n 27, at 383; EJ Hollo, P Vihervuori and K Kuusiniemi ‘Environmental law and administrative courts in Finland’ (2010) 3 J Ct Innovation 51, 59.

70. E Fisher et al. ‘Maturity and methodology: starting a debate about environmental law’ (2009) 21 JEL 213.

71. Pring and Pring, above n 8, p 110; M Grant, Environmental Court Project: Final Report (DETR, 2000); DW Kaniaru ‘Environmental courts and tribunals: the case of Kenya’ (2012) 29 Pace Envtl L Rev 566, 580; Amirante, above n 55, at 451.

72. RMA, ss 290, 293.

73. KA Palmer Planning and Development Law in New Zealand (Sydney: Law Book Company 1984), 9.

74. RMA, s 5(2).

75. Wilson v Selwyn DC [2005] NZRMA 76 at [71]); RMA, s 3.

76. New Zealand Rail Ltd v Marlborough District Council [1994] NZRMA 70 (HC) (adjusted partially by Environmental Defence Society Incorporated v Marlborough District Council [2014] NZSC 38).

77. Shirley Primary School v Christchurch City Council.

78. See n 20 above.

79. See text accompanying n 163.

80. Ministry for the Environment Improving our Resource Management System: A Discussion Document (Wellington: Ministry for the Environment, 2013), 13.

81. Ministry for the Environment, Report of the Minister for the Environment's Technical Advisory Group (Wellington: Ministry for the Environment, 2009), 10.

82. S Rivers-McCombs ‘Planning in wonderland: The RMA, local democracy and the rule of law’ (2011) 9 NZJPIL 43, 56.

83. Cane, above n 1, pp. 47–48.

84. Thanks to Professor John Burrows for stimulating this observation.

85. Environment, above n 81, 10.

86. Ibid.

87. E Fisher ‘Jurisdictional facts and hot facts: legal formalism, legal pluralism and the nature of Australian administrative law’ (2015) 38 MULR 968, 973.

88. M Weber ‘The three types of legitimate rule’ (1958) (4)1 Berkeley Publications in Society and Institutions 1.

89. D Beetham, The Legitimation of Power (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edn, 2013).

90. Ibid, xii.

91. RMA, pt 11.

92. Eg Conway v R [2013] NZCA 438.

93. KA Palmer ‘Environment court reform – more than the court under threat?’ RMLA, 25 June 2013, see rmla.org.nz/obiter/view/id/27 (accessed 8 May 2014); M McNicholas ‘Uncertainty lingers after court downgrade retreat’ FW Plus, June 2013, seehttp://agrihq.co.nz/article/uncertainty-lingers-after-court-downgrade-retreat?p = ?p = 46%3E (accessed 8 May 2014).

94. Beetham, above n 89, 293.

95. Cf constitutional debates in USA scenario: Fallon, above n 5.

96. JS Dryzek ‘Paradigms and discourses’ in D Bodansky, J Brunnée and E Hey (eds) The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 46; B Jessup and K Rubenstein ‘Introduction: Using discourse theory to untangle public and international environmental law’ in B Jessup and K Rubenstein (eds) Environmental Discourses in Public and International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 5; I Berlin ‘Does political theory still exist?’ in P Laslett and WG Runciman (eds) Philosophy, Politics and Society (2nd series) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), 19.

97. J Habermas Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston, MA: Heinemann 1979), 178–179.

98. National Research Council, above n 16, 31.

99. Fisher, Pascual and Wagner, above n 17, 266.

100. D Winickoff et al. ‘Adjudicating the GM food wars: science, risk, and democracy in eorld trade law’ (2005) 30 Yale J Int'l Law 81, 94.

101. Fisher, Pascual and Wagner, above n 17, 266.

102. E Goffman Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (Boston, MA: Northeastern 1974).

103. M Weber ‘The three types of legitimate rule’ in HH Gerth and C Wright Mills (eds) Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946), 78–79.

104. Beetham, above n 89, 35.

105. S Elias ‘Righting environmental justice’ (The Salmon Lecture, Auckland, 25 July 2013), 2.

106. F Frankfurter ‘The task of administrative law’ (1926) 75 U Pa L Rev 614, 619.

107. Lord Cooke of Thorndon ‘The discretionary heart of administrative law’ in C Forsyth and I Hare (eds) The Golden Metwand and the Crooked Cord: Essays in Honour of Sir William Wade QC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 220.

108. G Frug ‘The ideology of bureacracy in American law’ (1983–1984) 97 Harv L Rev 1276, 1318.

109. Robson, above n 12, 331; Committee Donoughmore, Committee on Ministers' Powers (Cmd 4060, 1932), 84; J McLean Searching for the State in British Legal Thought: Competing Conceptions of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 46.

110. M Taggart ‘From ‘parliamentary powers’ to privatization: the chequered history of delegated legislation in the twentieth century’ (2005) 55 U Toronto L J 575, 608.

111. Cf Frug, above n 108, 1336 ft 199.

112. A Chayes ‘The role of the judge in public law litigation’ (1975) 89 Harv L Rev 1281, 1302.

113. Ibid.

114. McLean, above n 109, 23, 305 and ch 6

115. Wraith and Hutchesson, above n 13, pp 17–22; W S Holdsworth A History of English Law Volume 1 (London: Methuen, 7th edn, 1956), 478; R M Jackson The Machinery of Justice in England (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1967), 351.

116. FW Maitland ‘The shallows and silences of real life’ in HAL Fisher (ed) The Collected Papers of Frederic William Maitland: Downing Professor of the Laws of England, vol 1 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1911), p 478.

117. P Cane ‘Public law in the concept of law’ (2013) 33 OJLS 649, 660–661.

118. Wraith and Hutchesson, above n 13, p 19; Arthurs, above n 5, pp. 50–53.

119. P Large ‘From swanimote to disafforestation: Feckenham Forest in the early seventeeth century’ in Richard Hoyle (ed) The Estates of the English Crown 1550–1640 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp 389, 393; G Jones ‘Swanimotes, woodmotes, and courts of’ free miners in J Langton and G Jones (eds) Forests and Chases of England and Wales c1500–c1850 (Oxford: St John's College Research Centre, 2005), p 42.

120. Jones, above n 119, pp 43–44.

121. Forest Charter 1217, cl 8.

122. Large, above, 119, p 395.

123. J Manwood, Manwood's Treatise of the Forest Laws (London: William Nelson, 5th edn, London 1741), pp 339–340

124. Jones, above n 119, p 43.

125. See http://www.verderers.org.uk/court.html and http://www.deanverderers.org.uk (accessed 4 June 2015); CE Hart, The Verderers and the Forest Laws of Dean (Lyndney: Lightmoor Press 2005).

126. New Forest Acts of 1838, 1877, 1949 (UK); Regulations Of The Verderers Of The New Forest Relating To The Courts Of Swainmote For The Dispatch Of Administrative And Judicial Business As Provided For In Section 24 Of The New Forest Act 1877 As Amended.

127. Ibid, Regulations, regs 14, 17.

128. Arthurs, above n 5; C Stebbings Legal Foundations of Tribunals in Nineteenth Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

129. R Macrory ‘Environmental courts and tribunals in England and Wales – a tentative new dawn’ (2010) 3 J Ct Innovation 61, 62.

130. Arthurs, above n 5, p 117.

131. C Sunstein The Partial Constitution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), p 320.

132. WI Jennings ‘Courts and administrative law – the experience of English housing legislation’ (1935–1936) 49 Harv L Rev 426, 435–437; see also E Taborsky ‘A Case for Administrative Tribunals’ (1943–1944) 7 MLR 209.

133. Ryder v Mills (1850) 19 LJMC (pt 2) 82 (Exch).

134. Cooper v Wandsworth Board of Works (1863) 143 ER 414.

135. Attorney General v Birmingham Corporation (1858) 4 K&J 528.

136. Robson, above n 12, p 69.

137. McLean, above n 109, 16, 113; see also M Loughlin Foundations of Public Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 442-443; Robson, above n 12, p 31; RS Summers, ‘Pragmatic instrumentalism in twentieth century American legal thought — a synthesis and critique of our dominant general theory about law and its use’ (1980–1981) 66 Cornell L Rev 861.

138. Falkner v Gisborne District Council [1995] NZLR 622 (HC), 630.

139. Robson, above n 12, p 334; JAG Griffith ‘Tribunals and inquiries’ (1959) 22 MLR 125, 129.

140. E. Gellhorn ‘Rules of evidence and official notice in formal administrative hearings’ [1971] Duke L J 1; KC Davis ‘An approach to the problems of evidence in the administrative process’ (1952) 55 Harv L Rev 402.

141. J Willis The Parliamentary Powers of English Government Departments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933), 51 quoted by Taggart, above n 110, 589.

142. Davis, above n 140.

143. Robson v Hicks Smiths and Sons Ltd [1965] NZLR 113 (SC), 1124. See also Stark v Auckland Regional Council , 617.

144. See 299 NZPD 689, 799.

145. Law Commission, above n 13. Other notable examples include the Maori Land Court and Maori Appellate Court, Employment Court, Family and Youth Court.

146. Electricity Commission, Environmental Protection Authority, Commerce Commission and Financial Markets Authority, etc.

147. Cane, above n 1, pp. 47–48

148. Wraith and Hutchesson, above n 13, 17.

149. Law Commission, above n 68, 34.

150. See Loughlin, above n 37, 448–449.

151. S Elias ‘Mapping the constitutional’ [2014] New Zealand Law Review 1, 8.

152. Robson, above n 12, 328.

153. Loughlin, above n 37, 444–445; TRS Allan ‘The constitutional foundations of judicial review: conceptual conundrum or interpretative inquiry?’ (2002) 61 CLJ 87.

154. See Taggart, above n 110.

155. Or in the specific context, appeals on a point of law, RMA s 299.

156. Especially given High Court deference to expert institutions: Law Commission, above n 2, 221; Stark v Auckland Regional Council ; see also Elliot and Thomas, above n 1.

157. See general criticism of the ‘judicial review model’ in Frug, above n 108, 1352.

158. Resnik , above n 9, 10.

159. See J Raz ‘The institutional nature of law’ (1975) 38 MLR 489, 499.

160. L Jaffe Judicial Control of Administrative Action (Boston, MA: Little and Brown, 1965), 324.

161. C Harlow and R Rawlings Law and Administration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3rd edn, 2009), 1.

162. Summers, above n 137, 863.

163. See Ministry for the Environment (NZ) ‘Publication Search’, see http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publication-search?search_api_views_fulltext=&f[0]=field_section_topic%3A170 (last accessed 17 July 2015).

164. For explanation of these concepts see E Fisher ‘The European Union in the age of accountability’ (2004) 24 OJLS 495, 508.

165. B Tamanaha, On the Rule of Law: History, Politics, Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 79.

166. Ibid, 79–80.

167. Akin to permitting and / or planning permission.

168. Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Act 2009 (NZ), ss 95A, 87C-I.

169. Resource Management (Forms, Fees, and Procedure) Amendment Regulations 2014 (NZ), sch 2.

170. LJ Newhook ‘Current and recent-past practice of the environment court concerning appeals on proposed plans and policy statements’ [2012] Resource Management Journal 13; LJ Newhook, Comparative costs of different NZ Resource Management hearing models: a discussion paper (Wellington: Environment Court of New Zealand, 2015); New Zealand Environment Court Annual Review by Members of the Court (Wellington: Environment Court of New Zealand, 2014).

171. LJ Newhook ‘Justice without barriers: technology for greater access to justice’ (Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration, Brisbane, 21–22 May 2015).

172. Eg Environment, above n 81, 10.

173. C de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu The Spirit of Laws, vol XI (Thomas Nugent tr, Place: Batoche Books, 2001), 173–174.

174. J Madison ‘Number XLVII’ in E H Scott (ed) The Federalist and other constitutional papers (Chicago, IL: Scott, Foresman and Co, 1898), p 266.

175. G Marshall Constitutional Theory (Oxford: Clarendon 1980), 100.

176. Cane, above n 1, p. 32.

177. J Waldron ‘Separation of powers in thought and practice’ (2013) 54 BCL Rev 433, 433–434.

178. Marshall, above n 175, p 100.

179. Eg Rivers-McCombs, above n 82; Environment, above n 81.

180. Robson, above n 12, 14. Robson's discrete metaphor is vehicular: ‘an antique and rickety chariot … for the conveyance of fallacious ideas’. See also I Jennings, The Law and the Constitution (London: University of London Press, 5th edn, 1969), 7–28 and Appendix I; Marshall, above n 175, ch 5.

181. EG Earl Halsbury and Viscount Halisham, Halsbury's Laws of England, vol 6 (London: Butterworth, 2nd edn, 1931), 385; A Venn Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (3rd edn, London: Macmillan 1889), 309, 322; Madison, above n 174, 268; Maitland, above n 16, 478; Henry Lord Viscount St John Bolingbroke, The Works of the Late Right Honourable Henry St John Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, vol 2 (Oliver Goldsmith ed, London: J Johnson 1809), 190–191; P Craig ‘Public law, political theory and legal theory’ [2000] PL 211, 218–219; L Claus ‘Montesquieu's mistakes and the true meaning of separation’ (2005) 25 OJLS 419; Cane, above n 1, 28; EL Rubin Beyond Camelot: Rethinking Politics and Law for the Modern State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).

182. O Pedersen ‘Modest pragmatic lessons for a diverse and incoherent environmental law’ (2013) 33 OJLS 103, 107.

183. Fisher, above n 11, 231.

184. Eg Falkner v Gisborne District Council (coastal defences v private property); Royal Forest and Bird Society of New Zealand Inc v Buller District Council [2006] NZRMA 193 (HC) (endangered fauna v coal); Bleakley v Environmental Risk Management Authority [2001] 3 NZLR 213 (HC) (Maori cultural beliefs v genetic modification).

185. C Warnock ‘Understanding the objective: psychological effects in environmental decision-making ’ (2011) 24 New Zealand Universities Law Review 574.

186. Particularly property rights, see Falkner v Gisborne District Council.

187. E Fisher ‘Environmental law as ‘hot’ law’ (2013) 25 JEL 347, 351; see also T Aagaard ‘Environmental law as a legal field: an inquiry in legal taxonomy’ (2010) 95 Cornell L Rev 221, 256–257.

188. Elias, above n 105, 1.

189. OW Holmes ‘The path of the law’ (1897) 10 Harv L Rev 457, 465.

190. Fisher, above, n 11, 232.

191. Arthurs, above n 5, pp. 204.

192. Dryzek, above n 96, 56.

193. Farmer, above n 13, 198.

194. RJ Bollard ‘The important role of yown and country planning appeal boards’ [1973] New Zealand Law Journal 233, 234.

195. Chayes, above n 112

196. Ibid, 1307.

197. See text accompanying nn 45–53.

198. Chayes, above n 112, 1304.

199. E Fisher Risk Regulation and Administrative Constitutionalism (Oxford: Hart, 2007), 30 citing B Cook, Bureaucracy and Self Government: Reconsidering the Role of Public Administration in American Government (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 16.

200. J March and J Olsen Rediscovering Institutions: The Organisational Basis of Politics (New York: Free Press, 1989), 124–129.

201. TRS Allan Law, Liberty and Justice: The Legal Foundations of British Constitutionalism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 57.

202. Ibid, 53; see also Robson, above n 12, 333–336.

203. Cane, above n 28, 220.

204. E Scotford and J Robinson ‘UK environmental legislation and its administration in 2013 – achievements, challenges and prospects’ (2013) 25 JEL, 397–399.

205. Environmental Defence Society Incorporated v Marlborough District Council ; C Warnock ‘Reconceptualising the Role of the New Zealand Environment Court’ (2014) 26 JEL 507.

206. Environmental Defence Society Incorporated v Marlborough District Council , [127] .

207. E Fisher, B Lange and E Scotford Environmental Law: Text, Cases and Materials (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 670.

208. E Scotford ‘Trash or treasure: policy tensions in EC waste regulation’ (2007) 19 JEL 367; HA Nash ‘The revised directive on waste: resolving legislative tensions in waste management?’ (2009) 21 JEL 139.

209. RMA, s 6 (b)–(e).

210. Davis, above n 140; R Somerville Submissions on: Striking the Balance – Appeal Processes – The Specialist Environment Court (A Review of the New Zealand Court System, New Zealand Law Commission, Wellington, 2002), 24.

211. Comptroller of Customs v Gordon & Gotch (NZ) Limited [1987] 2 NZLR 80 (HC), 93.

212. Warnock, above n 205, 510; Winstone Aggregates Ltd v Franklin District Council (NZEnvC Auckland A080/02, 17 April 2002).

213. Wakatipu Environmental Society Inc v Queenstown Lakes District Council [2000] NZRMA 59 (NZEnvC).

214. Cane, above n 1, pp. 12–13, referring to Jerome Franks' description.

215. S Jasanoff The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policy Makers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 12.

216. Chayes, above n 112, 1297.

217. Electricity Corporation of New Zealand Ltd v Manawatu-Wanganui Regional Council (unreported) W70/90, 29 October 1990 (PT) [95].

218. Turner v Allison [1971] NZLR 833 (CA), 843; for acknowledgment in different context see Jones (By Caldwell) v First Tier Tribunal [2013] UKSC 19, [2013] 2 AC 48.

219. Berlin, above n 96, 19.