Permission to Appeal Administrative Decisions
There's an increasing phenomenon in administrative law frameworks: Rather than allowing judicial review to a trial-level court, legislatures create statutory appeals to higher courts - but only with permission (or 'leave') of the court. The higher courts then create a test to determine whether to grant leave, which often includes a factor such as 'public interest' - whether the question being appealed has significance beyond the interests of the affected parties. These tests for leave aren't unheard of in other contexts: The Supreme Court of Canada applies a similar test to nearly all cases brought before it. Some appeals from lower courts to Provincial appellate courts, on specific types of questions, have similar features. In Ontario administrative law, your initial application for judicial review goes to the Divisional Court, and you can't appeal from there to the Ontario Court of Appeal without leave. So this isn't unheard of. But when the test for l...