| Description |
The opinions of the Merit Systems Protection Board during its initial two years provide a source book to study administrative adjudication. These opinions contain particularly valuable information because during this period, the Board confronted basic issues defining its role and implementing its view of adjudication. The Board’s resolution of these issues chronicle the development of a system of formal adjudication and therefore illustrate one approach to administrative adjudication. The questions that the Board addresses are ones that any institution establishing a formal adjudicatory process would confront. The Board’s experience reminds us that the strengths of judicial determination can be combined with the flexibility of the administrative process.
The Board opinions evidence a heavy reliance upon the judicial model tempered by accommodation to the administrative environment in which the Board functions. Therefore, the Board’s opinions contain judgments of the essential elements of formal adjudication. An examination of the Board’s decisions as mirrored in its opinions suggests principles applicable in other administrative settings… (Description from Source) |