What Are Remedies?

In law, a remedy is the solution or enforcement granted by a court when a legal issue is brought before it. When someone challenges a decision made by a government agency or authority through a judicial review, they are essentially asking the court to step in and fix an issue they believe to be wrong. The remedy they seek could involve canceling the decision, stopping an illegal action, or forcing the authority to take certain steps. Remedies ensure that the actions of government agencies follow the law and protect individuals from unfair decisions.

Judicial review plays a crucial role in Ethiopia's legal framework by ensuring that administrative agencies operate within the bounds of their authority and comply with the law. However, the principle of separation of powers limits judicial intervention, ensuring that courts do not overreach into matters reserved for the executive or administrative bodies. Judicial review in Ethiopia is concerned with evaluating the legality of decisions—not their merits—to prevent arbitrary governance while preserving administrative discretion.

The concept of "judicial review" varies in its meaning and application across different jurisdictions. In the United States, for instance, judicial review denotes the authority of a court to assess the legality of actions taken by public entities, to determine the constitutionality of a law or treaty, or to check if administrative regulations align with the Constitution, a statute, or a treaty.

As it has been thoroughly discussed in the previous units, there are great possibilities that the three powers of government may be concentrated in the hands of many administrative agencies. The delegation of rulemaking and adjudicating powers to administrative agencies become an inevitable phenomenon of the complex technological world. In addition to the broad discretionary administrative powers originally entrusted to the executive organ and its agencies by the constitution, the delegation of rulemaking and adjudicating powers to these agencies, although may be justified by certain social and economic rationales, pose an inevitable threat on individual freedom and liberty. As propounded by the French political philosopher, Montesquieu, where the tripartite powers are merged in the same person, or in the same body, there can be no liberty as the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control.