The hierarchy of administrative law describes the relationship between the government’s levels of lawmaking and implementation authorities. In the United States, there are three levels of enactment, interpretation, and enforcement of laws, i.e. federal, state, and the local level. It is a general rule that the laws, regulations, or rules lower in the hierarchy should not contradict those higher in the hierarchy. This rule is guided by the supremacy clause, which states that in case there is a conflict between the federal law and state law, the federal law wins the conflict. This especially is applicable in situations where there is an overlap in an area regulated by both the state law and the federal law. The hierarchy consists of constitution, laws, and regulation in descending order. This means that no statute or law may contradict the constitution, as they are all formulated forced on the implementation of the constitution (Parpworth, 2018). A local law formulated in New York, for example, may not contradict the New York state or the United States Constitution. The local law may, however, contradict a New York State law.
According to Rosenbloom (2016), the relationships between the branches of government are based on the power-sharing among the branches and administrative agencies. The separation of power doctrines provided for by the constitution gives the different government branches different mandates in relation to administrative law. The three arms of the government all play important but different roles in administrative law. The judiciary is responsible for the interpretation of the constitutional and statutory provisions and decides the role and applicability of the laws in different legal and administrative situations. In this regard, the judiciary acts as the referee between the executive and the legislature. The judiciary oversees how a particular constitutional clause or statutory law is implemented by the executive. It also oversees the legality of the regulations and laws formulated by the legislature. The legislative branch of government is responsible for creating the laws and statutes and making amendments to the existing laws. Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government. Each state also has legislative branches responsible for creating statutory legislation. The legislative branches of the federal and state governments have power limitations. These are the laws which the Congress or the state legislatures have no power over. The Congress may delegate some functions to legislative agencies. The executive is the administrative branch of government which regulates and implements the laws. The executive exercises administrative powers where its functions are subjective and devoid of evidence collection. The executive makes decisions based on expediency and formulated policy.
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Congress has the power to pass statutes to enable the creation of new laws. These statutes become the administrative agencies which are mandated with the establishment and regulation of laws (Rosenbloom, 2016). The actions of the executive agencies are subject to the power delegated to them by the Congress. The agencies lack an inherent constitutionally granted power to act on the statutes or policy creation. The power delegation may be broad enough to enable the agency to exercise its powers fully in a given area or limited only to a narrow range of activities within a larger area. In this regard, the agencies are bound by the extent of power passed down to them by the delegating authority. Parpworth (2018) asserts that power limitation is an important concept in administrative agency law and statutes. Actions of the agency outside the scope of its delegated authority are considered non-binding and unconstitutional. The enabling legislation and the granting or restriction of authority define the parameters of the agencies’ power. However, there is no specific rule that defines the extent of agency power. Litigation is dependent on evaluating the power limitation and the action taken by the administrative authority.
References
Parpworth, N. (2018). Constitutional and administrative law . Oxford University Press.
Rosenbloom, D. H. (2016). 3a. Public Administrative Theory and the Separation of Powers. In The Constitutional School of American Public Administration (pp. 78-94). Routledge.
