Dicey Revisited. II
| Date | 01 September 1959 |
| Author | F. H. Lawson |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1959.tb01932.x |
| Published date | 01 September 1959 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DICEY REVISITED.
111
F.
H.
LAWSON
Brasenose
College,
Oxford
IV.
THE
SPECIAL
NATURE
OF
DROIT
ADMINISTRATIF
I
DO
not think that from his strictly limited point of view-which he
insisted on-Dicey was in the end unfair to
droit
administrutif.
But he
would have laid himself much less open to criticism
if
he had not denied
that France lived under the ‘Rule of Law’. However carefully he defined
the latter term as describing the English system and others closely resem-
bling it, and however expressly
he
disclaimed at the very end of his book2
any intention
of
asserting ‘that foreign
forms
of
government are necessarily
inferior to the English constitution,
or
unsuited for
a
civilized and free
people’, he could not help being accused
of
saying that the French lived
under a rdgime
of
lawlessness.
Of course he never said or meant that. He made the correct point in one
of
the most significant passages in the book.3 He says:
In
England the powers
of
the Crown and its servants may from time to time be
increased as they may also be diminished. But these powers, whatever they are,
must be exercised in accordance with the ordinary common law principles which
govern the relation
of
one Englishman to another.
.
.
.
In
France, on the other
hand, whilst the powers placed
in
the hands of the administration might be
diminished, it is always assumed that the relation
of
individual citizens to the
State is regulated by principles different from those which govern the relation of
one French citizen to another.
Droit
administratif,
in
short, rests
upon
ideas
absolutely foreign
to
English law: the one, as
I
have already explained, is that
the relation of individuals to the State is governed by principles essentially dif-
ferent from those rules of private law which govern the rights of private persons
towards their neighbours.
There is not the slightest doubt that the ordinary courts were warned off
from interfering with the administration, not according to any consciously
held principle, but because the old French PmZements had made themselves
a
nuisance to administrative bodies. Exceptionally, where the intervention
of
the ordinary courts was not likely to obstruct the administration and
was
The
first
part
of
Professor Lawson’s article appeared
in
the
last
issue.
Ed.
L.C.,
p.
472.
L.C.,
p.
387.
Polltlcal Studies.
Vol.
VII,
No.
3
(1959. 207-221).
5540.7.3
P
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