Speech #910290726

Public policy requires that agencies feel free to ask legislation which will terminate or avoid adverse contentions and litigaFootnotes at end of article. tions. We do not feel justified in holding that a request for and failure to get in a single session of Congress clarifying legislation on a genuinely debatable point of agency procedure admits weakness In the agencys contentions We draw. therefore. no inference in favor of either construction of the Actfrom the Departments request for legislative clarification. from the congressional committees willingness to consider it. or from Congress failure to enact it. We come. then. to examination of the text of the Act to determine whether the Government is right in its contentions: first. that the general scope of � 5 of the Act does not cover deportation proceedings. and. second. that even If it does. the proceedings are excluded from the requirements of the Act by virtue of � 7. Iv The Administrative Procedure Act. � 5. establishes a number of formal requirements to be applicable "In every case of adjudication required by statute to be determined on the record after opportunity for an agency hearing." The argument here depends upon the words "adjudication required by statute." The Government contends that there is no express requirement for any hearing or adjudication in the statute authorizing deportation.29 and that this omission shields these proceedings from the impact of � 5. Petitioner. on the other hand. contends that deportation hearings. though not expressly required by statute. are required under the decisions of this Court.30 and the proceedings. therefore are within the scope of � 5. Both parties Invoke many citations to legislative history as to the meaning given to these key words by the framers. advocates or opponents of the Administrative Procedure Act. Because � 5 in the original bill applied to hearings required "by law." 31 because it was suggested by the Attorney General that it should be changed to "required by statute or Constitution." 32 and because it finally emerged "required by statute." the Govern�ment argues that the section is intended to apply only when explicit statutory words granting a right to adjudication can be pointed out.