A Comparison of the Administrative Law of the Catholic Church and the United States

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review Volume 34 Number 1 The Seventh Annual Fritz B. Burns Lecture: The War Powers Resolution and Article 6 Kosovo 11-1-2000 A Comparison of the Administrative Law of the Catholic Church and the United States John J. Coughlin Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation John J. Coughlin, A Comparison of the Administrative Law of the Catholic Church and the United States, 34 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 81 (2000). Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol34/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A COMPARISON OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE LAW OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE UNITED STATES Rev. John J. Coughlin, O.F.M.* I. INTRODUCTION Some years ago, an international symposium of jurists described administrative law as encompassing the entire range of action by government with respect to the citizen or by the citizen with respect to the government, ex- cept for those matters dealt with by the criminal law, and those left to private civil litigation where the government's only participation is in furnishing an impartial tribunal with the power of enforcement.' The broad parameters of the concept of administrative law attest to its importance in any legal system. Indeed, for at least the past fifty years, comparative legal scholars have focused on diverse na- tional systems of administrative law.2 Canonists have also contrib- * Assistant Professor of Law, St. John's University School of Law. J.C.D., J.C.L., Pontifical Gregorian University; J.D., Harvard Law School; Th.M., Princeton Theological Seminary; M.A., Columbia University; B.A., Niagara University. Fr. Coughlin formerly served as a law clerk to Hon. Fran- cis X. Altimari of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The author wishes to thank Most Reverend Raymond L. Burke, Monsignor Jo- seph Punderson, and Elizabeth A. Chappell for their many helpful suggestions during the preparation of this Article. Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review would also like to thank Most Rev- erend Raymond L. Burke and Monsignor Joseph Punderson for their assistance in reviewing church sources. As the majority of the church sources are in Latin, it was beyond the expertise of the Law Review to verify the contents of the writings. 1. Henry J. Friendly, New Trends in Administrative Law, MD. B. J., Apr. 1974, at 6, 9. 2. See, e.g., ZAIM M. NEDJATI & J.E. TRICE, ENGLISH AND CONTINENTAL SYSTEMS OF ADI~fNISTRATIVE LAW (1978); PAPERS IN COMPARATIVE PUBLIC 81 LOYOLA OFLOS ANGELES LA WREVIEW [Vol. 34:81 uted to this area of comparative law.3 The author believes that this Article represents the first attempt to compare the procedural re- quirements of administrative justice in canon law with those of the law of the United States. Specifically, this Article compares the procedure for administrative law at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and at the United States Supreme Court.4 The canonist refers to the "contentious-administrative" process to describe recourse against an administrative act which is brought to the Apostolic Signatura.5 The American jurist speaks of the "judicial review" of administrative ac- tions, which is entrusted to the federal courts and may culminate at ADMINISTRATION (Ferrel Heady & Sybil L. Stokes eds., 1962); 1 WILLIAM WADE ET AL., ADMINISTRATIVE LAW: THE PROBLEM OF JUSTICE, AMERICAN AND NORDIC SYSTEMS (Aldo Piras ed., 1991). 3. See FRANCO BOLOGNINI, ATTI DELL'NCONTRO INTERDISCIPLINARE SU "LA TUTELA DELLE SITUAZIONI GIURIDICHE SOGGETTIVE NEL DIRITTO CANONICO, CIVILE AMMINISTRATIVO" (1991); Antonio Vitale, Differenze e convergenze dei principi della giustizia amministrativa civile e canonica, 98 MONITOR ECCLESIASTICUS 362 (1973). For a brief overview of English and Continental systems of administrative justice in comparison to ecclesiastical administrative justice, see PAUL HAYWARD, ADMINISTRATIVE JUSTICE ACCORDING TO THE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION "PASTOR BONUS" (1993). For intra-comparative studies of ecclesiastical administrative justice in different nations, see Zenon Grocholewski, I Tribunali regionali amministralivi rela chiesa, in DE IUSTITIA ADMINISTRATIVA IN ECCLESIA 135, 156 (Pio Fedele ed., 1984); Edward M. Egan, De consi/iis administrativisecclesiasticis in civ. foed. amer. sept. constitutis, 67 PERIODICA 16 (1978); Michael R. Quinlan, De schemate commissionum administrativarum in Britannia et de sic dicto <<ombudsman>> a nova zelanda proposito, 67 PERIODICA 607, 620-25 (1978). 4. The "Apostolic Signatura," a short form of the title given in 1983 CODE c.1445, § 1 (originally promulgated at Codex Juris Canonici autoritateloannis Pauli Pp. I promulgatus, 85 AAS 1 (1983)) (the English translation, THE CODE OF CANON LAW (Canon Law Soc'y of Gr. Brit. & Ir. trans., 1983), was followed for this Article), to the "Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signa- tura" ("Supremum Signaturae Apostolicae Tribunal"), will be used throughout this Article. Likewise, the United States Supreme Court is often referred to as the "Supreme Court." While the adjective "American" ordinarily includes all the countries of South and North America, it is employed throughout the Arti- cle to describe the United States of America. 5. See generally 1983 CODE cc.1501-1670 (describing the contentious trial process). November 2000] COMPARISON OFADMINISTRATIVE LAW 83 the Supreme Court.6 Despite the difference in terminology, both canon law and federal law furnish procedures by which an individual may bring recourse from an act of administrative power to the re- spective supreme tribunal As supreme tribunals, both the Apostolic Signatura and the Supreme Court constitute the final guardians against the unlawful exercise of administrative power.7 On average, the Apostolic Signatura entertains approximately thirty cases of administrative recourse per year.! These cases are diverse in nature and concern matters such as: the removal of a pastor, the dismissal of a religious,9 the suppression of a parish, the suppression of a religious house, the disputed election of a superior general and council, the revocation of the faculty to hear confessions, the suppression of a faculty of theology, the dismissal of a professor from an ecclesiastical faculty, the expulsion of a religious from a diocese, the prohibition of a layman from participating in the parish liturgy due to public scandal, the transfer of a pastor, and the validity of action taken by the provincial chapter in an institute of conse- crated life. 10 The Supreme Court hears approximately one hundred fifty cases a year," of which only a small fraction are principally concerned with administrative justice.' 2 Like the work of the Apostolic Signa- tura, the cases of administrative justice before the Supreme Court cover a large scope. They include matters of economic regulation, health and safety regulation, social security and welfare, immigration 6. See generally Charles H. Koch, Jr., Judicial Review of Administrative Discretion, 54 GEO. WASH. L. REv. 469 (1985) (discussing restrained judicial review of administrative decisions). 7. See 1983 CODE c.1445, § 2; LAURENCE H. TRIBE, AMERIcxN CONSTITUTIONAL LAw 23-61 (2d ed. 1988). 8. See Zenon Grocholewski, La giustizia amministrativa presso la Signa- tura Apostolica, 4 Ius ECCLESiAE 3, 4-5 (1992). 9. A "religious" is a member of a religious community, such as a Domini- can, Jesuit; Benedictine, etc. 10. See Grocholewski, supra note 8, at 14. 11. See Peter L. Strauss, One Hundred Fifty Cases Per Year: Some Impli- cations of the Supreme Court's Limited Resources for Judicial Review of Agency Action, 87 COLUM. L. REv. 1093, 1093 (1987). 12. See id. at 1094. LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES LA WREVIEW [Vol. 34:81 and deportation, education, housing and urban development, and the environment, to name a few areas of concern.13 There are many things in common between the two bodies of law. The comparison of the two discloses three fundamental elements in common. First, the subject is the private person, who al- leges some injury as a result of an administrative act.' 4 Second, the object consists of the single administrative act, posited by a public organ of government, which allegedly caused some injury. Third, the process comprises that set of rules which is to be followed when the private person challenges the single administrative act. Accord- ingly, this study focuses on the review, by each of the supreme tribu- act which is alleged by a private per- nals, of a single administrative 5 son to have caused some injury.' In making the comparison between canon law and American Administrative law, this Article relies on three basic procedural models to explain the organization of the different systems.16 In the first procedural model, termed "hierarchical recourse," the superior of the authority who posited the administrative act serves as judge of the case. 17 Elements of this model are evident in the administrative procedure of both canon law and United States federal agencies. The 13. No reliable longitudinal study could be located that segregated the numbers of such cases heard by the Supreme Court into such categories. See id. at 1096-110. 14. In canon law, the subject would include real persons and private juridic persons. See 1983 CODE c.116, § 2. Likewise, American law has long recog- nized certain legal rights of private corporations along with real persons. See Old Dominion Copper Mining & Smelting Co. v. Lewisohn, 210 U.S. 206, 216 (1908) (reasoning that a corporation is its own entity, despite changing mem- bers and stock trading, and therefore can be tried in court like a person).

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