Administrative Law

 Law regulating the powers, procedures, and actions of public administrators, departments, and agencies.

Administrative law embraces rule-making, or the power to make regulations having the force of law, the issuing of licenses, with or without attached conditions (or the refusal or revocation of licenses), affecting the operation of a range of businesses, powers of inspection and investigation, and powers of enforcement, including prosecution.

All these features are common to pollution-control legislation in general and much environmental protection legislation.

Such laws bestow considerable powers on ministers, public officials, departments, and agencies; they also restrict what can be done by these bodies, often naming avenues of appeal.