It was Dicey’s dislike of administrative law that cast a shadow over the subject in the early years of this century, at least in the UK, but also to some extent in the United States. The modem growth of administrative law was directly connected with the extension of governmental functions relating to the poor, the unemployed, trade regulation and the like. It became impossible to separate an evaluation of the agencies applying these laws from a value judgment of the social policies in the laws themselves. Those who disliked such social intervention, including Dicey, tended to view the agencies applying such laws with suspicion (Dicey, 1959). The predominance he accorded to the ‘ordinary law’, applied by the ‘ordinary courts’, was a means of controlling these agencies, and of maintaining judicial supervision over the substantive policies which they applied. The paramount function of the courts was essentially negative, to ensure that the agency did not make mistakes by exceeding the power granted to it.