In the Australian liberal democratic tradition, the expectation that government be accountable to the people is a product of the electorate’s grant of power to government. As government becomes more complex due to the expansion of human activity it regulates there is increased reliance upon official means of facilitating democratic accountability. Indicative of this development is the 20th century supplementation of traditional Westminster mechanisms of accountability with administrative law institutions such as the Commonwealth Ombudsman. These supplementary review processes and institutions of ‘new administrative law’ aim to render the application of discretionary decision-making by government administrators transparent and fair to the individual citizen. This was the primary vision of the Kerr and Bland Committees which framed the need for administrative review agencies against the background of the protection and promotion of individual citizen rights.

This article examines the application of the rule of law to special leave to appeal applications (‘SLAs’) in the High Court of Australia. SLAs are a fusion of administrative and judicial power. As an administrative tool, determinations of SLAs are a workload filter, limiting the appeals heard by the Court. As an exercise of judicial power, SLA determinations have significant impact upon the parties to litigation and the development of substantive law. Presenting the findings of data analysis of the determination of SLAs in the High Court of Australia from 2013 to 2015, we identify the loss of publicly available information brought about by changes to the High Court Rules in 2016. Using this evidence, we argue that the current administration of SLAs preferences efficiency to the detriment of public confidence in the administration of justice. We suggest facilitating the rule of law through publication of the written submissions for SLAs.

Resolution of disputes in Australia is frequently achieved by ombudsmen. Yet there is no uniform model of an ombudsman. Consequently, across Australian jurisdictions, the development of the institution has been ad hoc and fragmented. What has followed, however, has been the transformation of the institution to apply to new contexts, to the extent that it is questionable in some instances as to whether ‘ombudsman’ remains the appropriate descriptor for the institution. This article explains and critiques these developments, observes that the conditions which have created such change are set to continue and argues that care must be taken to protect citizen trust in the ombudsman brand.