Textbook on Administrative Law

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Authors: Peter Leyland & Gordon Anthony

Price: £27.99

Edition: 6th Edition (October 2008)

ISBN: 978-0-19-921776-2

Buy from OUP: Click Here

This sixth edition of Textbook on Administrative Law by Peter Leyland and Gordon Anthony has been substantively rewritten and aims to provide a concise and topical account of this fast-moving area of law.  This is an ambitious aim for any textbook but more so for administrative law, which is often considered a difficult and complex area of law for students.  That said, the text is well-balanced and largely achieves its aim.  Its price also makes it excellent value for money.

Written by two experienced academic lawyers, Textbook on Administrative Law is split into twenty-two chapters.  Important chapters for many students include: the Ombudsman principle, dispute resolution in the administrative state: tribunals and enquiries; judicial review (including illegality, Wednesbury unreasonableness and procedural impropriety); remedies; contracting and public  bodies (including an important but brief section on public procurement: an issue of vital importance in practice); public authority liability in tort; and the future of administrative law.

Textbook on Administrative Law provides a well-written and interesting account of the law.  At times, it includes extremely useful tables.  For example, lawyers dealing with tribunals will be very interested to consider the table setting out the various case loads of the Tribunals Service together with its disposal times.  One of the key features is its accessibility: its written style is extremely readable.  Other key features include a useful list of further reading at the end of each chapter (although the authors could do with updating some of the resources: one text has had two new editions and a different publisher!).

Lawyers and students looking for an accessible and interesting account of administrative law should seriously consider Textbook on Administrative Law.  Those readers should, however, bear in mind that it provides a rather superficial overview of the law and often avoids delving deeper into the issues.  Whilst this may be to the liking of some readers, it may not be to others.  For my part, however, Textbook on Administrative Law strikes an excellent balance between exploring some of the issues in greater detail whilst, at the same time, giving the reader enough information to cover the fundamental points.

Reviewed on 26 July 2010

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