Administrative Law Is a Very

Administrative law is a very important topic today, and courses such as this one teach individuals a great deal of information regarding different types of laws. Discussed here as a course reflection will be some of the issues that were learned about in this course. The ideas of fairness and due process have long been considered to be highly important in this country, and the main point of Barr's (2002) article is that the new individual that is working with regulations for the Bush administration, John Graham, is doing things quite differently and is making much more of an effort to ensure that the regulations that are kept are legitimate and enforced and the rest of the regulations are done away with if they are not needed and do not intend to be used. According to the article, Graham is not necessarily following the rules that Bush originally set out for the regulatory committees and studies, but yet he is doing a good job overall despite the fact that some companies and lawmakers do not feel that one person should be making the kind of regulatory decisions that Graham actually has the power to make (Barr, 2002).

As for whether the article properly addresses fairness and due process, this is a matter of some debate. According to Hall (2004), if there is a concern of fairness or due process then a cost-benefit analysis must be conducted. This is very important for those that feel their life or liberty is at risk from something that might take place based on regulatory issues. Many court cases can also be cited which indicate that due process rules and regulations have generally been upheld by the court where life or liberty is concerned and that the regulations that are created for companies and industries must be followed (Hall, 2004). It appears that what Graham is trying to do based on information in the article is consistent with what Hall (2004) believes should take place in that regulations that are important are enforced and regulations that are not as necessary or that do not work on an across-the-board level are either done away with or are changed so that they are more appropriate for all. The goal is to have as much necessary regulation as possible while at the same time ensuring the removal of regulations that are not needed or used.

Fairness and due process were not all that were learned in the course, however. Agency discretion is another significant issue today, and it is important here to name, describe, and give an example of two different types of agency discretion as seen in Hall's (2004) textbook. The first one of these is prosecutorial discretion, and this took place in the case of General Motors v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Prosecutorial discretion is generally involved with criminal cases and actions, such as was the case of General Motors. A complaint was filed, but the agency that was in charge of dealing with those types of complaints exercised its discretion and decided not to proceed any further when it came to a prosecution of the company. It was found that the agency acted correctly in deciding that it was not going to take any action on the complain or proceed with any type of criminal action toward the General Motors company (Hall, 2004).