A Code of Administrative Procedure
| Date | 01 May 1942 |
| Published date | 01 May 1942 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271624222100122 |
| Author | Carl McFarland |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
160
A
Code
of
Administrative
Procedure
By
CARL
McFARLAND
AN
ELEMENTARY
discussion
of
the
subject
of
legislation
in
the
field
of
Federal
administrative
proce-
dure
may
be
conveniently
treated
in
four
phases:
(1)
the
inapplicability
of
the
notion
of
&dquo;codification&dquo;
in
this
field;
(2)
the
recent
trends
of
thought
on
the
subject
of
general
legislation;
(3)
the
problems
of
the
citizen,
which
have
led
to
demands
for
such
legislation;
and
(4)
the
scope
of
any
such
legislation.
CODIFICATION
NOT
APPLICABLE
In
the
ancient,
medieval,
and
modern
world,
codification
of
laws
has
been
a
reform
movement.
Its
underlying
thesis
has
been
that,
when
laws
are
complex,
diverse,
dispersed,
overlapping,
and
un-
certain,
the
public-and
particularly
that
portion
of
the
public
which
does
not
have
at
its
disposal
funds,
the
leisure
to
study
the
state
of
the
law,
or
the
means
to
afford
delays-must
neces-
sarily
suffer.
But
in
the
field
of
na-
tional
legislation
in
the
United
States,
codification
has
been
late.
Even
the
publication
of
Federal
laws
was
first
confined
to
newspapers.
It
was
eighty-
five
years
before
there
was
a
code
of
Federal
statutory
law,
though
the
lack
of
such
a
compilation
had
been
felt
since
the
year
the
Federal
Government
was
organized.
It
was
one
hundred
and
forty-odd
years
before
there
was
even
systematic
publication
of
administrative
legislation-that
is,
rules
and
regula-
tions
made
and
issued
by
administrative
agencies-and
it
was
one
hundred
and
fifty
years
before
there
was
a
codifica-
tion
of
such
materials.’
The
latter,
however,
is
in
no
sense
a
codification
of
administrative
law
or
procedure;
it
con-
tains
no
statutory
material,
and
only
such
substantive
or
procedural
regula-
tions
as
administrative
agencies
choose
to
issue.2
2
The
prior
history
of
delay
in
codifica-
tion
should,
however,
not
be
taken
to
indicate
that
there
must
necessarily
be
long
delays
in
codification.
To
be
sure,
aside
from
the
periodic
codifications
which
have
come
to
be
accepted
in
the
field
of
state
legislation,
movements
for
codification
come
to
fruition
only
when
the
law
has
become
so
confused
as
to
be
strikingly
unintelligible
or
uncertain.
But
Federal
legislation
was
much
re-
stricted
in
the
period
prior
to
the
Civil
War,
and
codification
followed
almost
immediately
upon
the
expanded
legis-
lative
output
which
attended
the
war
and
reconstruction.
Federal
adminis-
trative
legislation-except
in
taxation,
where
commercial
publishers
quickly
occupied
the
field
with
a
new
type
of
law
book
known
generally
as
&dquo;loose-leaf
services&dquo;-was
much
restricted until
the
1930’s,
and
was
promptly
followed
by
publication
in
the
Federal
Registet
and
the
Code
of
Federal
Regulations.
A
more
restricted
meaning
of
codifica-
1
Homer
Cummings
and
Carl
McFarland,
Federal
Justice
(1937),
468
et
seq.;
Ralph
Dwan
and
Ernest
R.
Feidler,
The
Federal
Stat-
utes-Their
History
and
Use,
22
Minn.
Law
Rev.
1008
(1938) ;
Code
of
Federal
Regula-
tions,
v.
1,
pp.
iv-vi
(1939).
2
"While
this
important
step
made
it
pos-
sible
for
the
citizens
to
discover
what
rules,
if
any,
had
been
made,
it
did
not
provide
affirmatively
for
the
making
of
needed
types
of
rules
or
for
the
issuance
of
other
forms
of
information."
Administrative
Procedure
in
Government
Agencies-Report
of
the
Com-
mittee
on
Administrative
Procedure
Appointed
by
the
Attorney
General
at
the
Request
of
the
President,
to
Investigate
the
Need
for
Procedural
Reform
in
Various
Administra-
tive
Tribunals
and
to
Suggest
Improvements
Therein,
Sen.
Doc.
8,
77th
Cong.,
1st
Sess.
(1941), pp.
25-26.
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