ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

I.Administrative Law, defined.

1.A branch of- public law which fixes the organization and determines the
competence of the administrative authorities who execute the law, and indicates to
the individual remedies for the violation of his rights. (Goodnow, Comparative
Administrative Law, p. 8.)
2.A system of legal principles which settles the conflicting claims of the executive
and administrative authorities on the one hand and of ,the individual or private right
on the other. (Freund, Cases on Administrative Law, p. 1.)
3.A branch of modern law under which the executive department of the
government, acting in a quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial capacity, interferes with
the conduct of the individual for the purpose of promoting the well-being of the
community, as under laws regulating public utility corporations, business affected
with a public interest, professions, trades and callings, rates and prices, laws for the
protection of public health and public convenience and advantage. (Pound. Growth
of American Administrative Law, p. 110.)
II.Scope purpose, concern and function of Administrative. Law.
The term administrative law includes all that portion of public law of the land
concerning executive and administrative officials. In this sense, it includes much of
the law of sovereign -states, their powers and duties. the laws of public officers,
their election, appointment and removal. civil service, and the rights, duties, and
liabilities of officers, much of the law of public corporations, the law relating to
government services and the distribution of the bounties of government, and finally,
all of that great and growing mass of legal doctrines having to do with the
enforcement of statute law regulating private affairs. It necessarily includes also
.the procedural methods by which substantive law in this field is effectuated.
(Stason, Administrative Tribunals. 2nd ed., p. 1.)
Its chief concern is the protection of private rights; and its subject matter is,
therefore, the nature and mode of exercise of administrative power and the system
of relief against administrative action. (42 Am. Jur. 287.)
The main function is to keep the administration of government in action and in
orderly manner. Administrative law transmits the will of the state from its source to
the point of its application. It governs the transmission of the active power, seeing
that it does not waste itself in vain efforts to solve problems of the state, that it
results at some effective end, and that it does not go amiss and commit some
wrong. (Harvard Law Review, No. 5, p. 484.)
III.Kinds of Administrative Law.

1.Statutes setting up administrative authorities, either by creating board and

commissions or administrative officers or by confiding the powers and duties to
existing boards, commissions, or officers, to amplify,. apply, execute, and supervise
the operation of, and determine controversies, arising under particular laws in the
enactment of which the legislative decided for matters of convenience or for quicker
or more efficient administration to withhold the controversies, at least in the first
instance from the courts of common law.
2.That body of doctrines and decisions dealing with the creation, operation, and
effect of determination and regulations of such administrative authorities.
3.Rules, regulations, or order of such administrative authorities enacted and
promulgated in pursuance of the purposes for which they were created or endowed.
4.Determination, decisions, and orders of such administrative authorities made in
the settlement of controversies arising in their particular fields. (42 Am. Jur. 288.)
IV.Sources of Administrative Law.
1.Constitution;
2.Legislative enactments;
3.Court decisions;
4.Administrative ruling's (administrative bodies and authorities); and
5.Treaties of recognized authorities.
V.Origin and development of Administrative Law.
The origin of administrative law is in legislation, and it proceeds from the increased
function of government. As the new functions were created, it was found that
neither the legislative nor the courts were equipped to administer them, and they
were delegated to the executive branch of the government by the legislature, which
sometimes entrusted them to existing officials, but more often created new offices
for the purposes. Because the legislature cannot foresee every contingency
involved in the -particular problem it is seeking to control, it has become customary
for it to delegate to each newly-created instrumentality of the executive department
the power to make regulations to carry the statute into effect. More than this, to
enable the administrative agencies to perform their work efficiently, the legislature
has granted to them the power to adjudicate cases arising within the scope of their
activities. (42 Am. Jur. 292.)
VI.Administrative Law and Constitutional Law, distinguished.
1.Constitutional Law lays down the general plan of governmental organization,
while administrative law carries out this plan in its minutest detail.

2.Administrative law not only supplements constitutional law in so far as it

regulates the administrative organization of the government; but also complements
constitutional law, in so far as it determines the rules of law relative to the activity
of administrative authorities.

3.Constitutional law treats of the relations of the government with the individual;
administrative law treats of the same relation from the standpoint of government,.
4.Constitutional law lays stress on rights, while administrative law lays stress on
duties, (Malcolm, Philippine Constitutional Law, p. 2.) [Administrative Law, 15 SCRA
373(1965)]