Just Words? Judicial Reasons as Remedy in Administrative Law

Authors

  • Colin Feasby

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/alr2849

Abstract

This article examines how judicial reasons function remedially in administrative law following Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov. While reasons traditionally explain decisions, they have always had a remedial function through their normative and expressive force. Vavilov’s “culture of justification” increased the remedial function of reasons by making them central not only to judicial oversight but to administrative decision-making itself. In this post-Vavilov framework, courts now write reasons that not only justify outcomes but provide the framework for administrative redetermination, transforming them into functional remedies.

Downloads

Published

2025-10-04

Issue

Vol. 63 No. 1 (2025): Special Edition: Vavilov at 5 Conference

Section

Articles

License

For Editions following and including Volume 61 No. 1, the following applies.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License

For Editions prior to Volume 61 No. 1, the following applies.

Author(s) retain original copyright in the substantive content of the titled work, subject to the following rights that are granted indefinitely:

  1. Author(s) grant the Alberta Law Review permission to produce, publish, disseminate, and distribute the titled work in electronic format to online database services, including, but not limited to: LexisNexis, QuickLaw, HeinOnline, and EBSCO;
  2. Author(s) grant the Alberta Law Review permission to post the titled work on the Alberta Law Review website and/or related websites.
  3. Author(s) agree that the titled work may be used for educational or instructional purposes and/or in educational or instructional materials. The author(s) acknowledge that the titled work is subject to other such "fair dealing" provisions and applicable legislation.
  4. Author(s) grant a limited license to those accessing the titled work from an electronic database or an Alberta Law Review website to download the titled work onto their computer and to print a copy for their own personal, non-commercial use, subject to proper attribution.

To use the journal's content elsewhere, permission must be obtained from the author(s) and the Alberta Law Review.