The Role and Functions of Federal Hearing Examiners

Joseph Zwerdling
Additional contact information
Joseph Zwerdling: Federal Power Commission

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1972, vol. 400, issue 1, 27-35

Abstract: Hearing examiners in the major regulatory agen cies function as administrative trial judges in proceedings comparable to some of the biggest and most complex cases tried in the federal courts. Once selected, and after undergoing a rigorous examination process, their independence is recognized and protected. From the time a hearing examiner is assigned to a given case, he is in complete charge of the proceeding until he issues his initial decision. During recent years much atten tion has been focused upon problems of delay in administrative proceedings. The role of the hearing examiner has been the focal point of efforts to expedite the hearing stage. The hear ing examiner performs his most important function, however, when he drafts and issues his initial decision at the conclusion of the hearing. The important and difficult task of the regula tory agencies is made far more manageable if they have the benefit of a clear and comprehensive initial decision by the hearing examiner who presided over the hearing and who has lived with the case from the beginning. Finally, one of the essential and overriding objectives of our administrative process is fairness and due process. The role played by the hearing examiner is the key to the successful achievement of this ob jective.

Date: 1972
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000271627240000104 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:400:y:1972:i:1:p:27-35

DOI: 10.1177/000271627240000104

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().