Administrative law provides for the set up and running of different federal and state Regulatory Agencies. While the Congress delegates powers to the federal agencies, the different state legislatures empower the corresponding state agencies. These administrative agencies are established to safeguard and protect public interest in their respective fields such as securities market, foreign trade, environment, commercial aviation, medical equipment manufacturing and so on.
These governmental agencies have law or rule making powers concerning their own fields of public interest by virtue of the concerned parent statute of their creation and empowerment. They also have ad judicatory functions for settling differences and disputes upon observance of ‘ due process norms’. The laws made by these federal agencies are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations.
Federal Administrative Procedure Act (FAPA) is designed to ensure that these governmental agencies act within the constitutional parameters with transparency.
Accordingly the FAPA is the chief source of federal administrative agency law and the corresponding state legislations are the foundations of state regulatory agency law.
This branch of law is also concerned with putting in place a system of checks and balances to curb administrative arbitrariness while at the same time ensuring flexibility and dynamism of such administrative bodies.
Administrative law also determines the validity of such agency decisions and defines the role of judicial review of regarding such agencies. This field of law also gives the relationship equations by and between these regulatory bodies and other government organs.
