Contexts
Legal
Translation Equivalents
- Appropriate Agency
- Interested Agency
Analysis
An appropriate agency is a vague and ambiguous reference that refers to a subdivision of the government administration without specifically naming the agency with jurisdiction, where jurisdiction will typically be defined separately. This concept is well-known to American law, which also has similar legal language phenomenon around both vagueness and often inability to identify the appropriate agency, for example 10 CFR § 14.17 provides:
“If a claim is erroneously presented to the NRC, the NRC shall transfer it to the appropriate agency, if the proper agency can be identified from the claim, and shall advise the claimant of the transfer.”
Correct use of this term in regulatory compliance advice is essential in order to be unambiguous about agency jurisdiction. See our Article on the Chinese law concept for more details.
Politics
Translation Equivalents
- Relevant Department
- Relevant Agency
Analysis
In political discourse, politicians are often heard promising to take action by directing the relevant department to implement a policy to achieve a campaign promise. Typically, this is referred to as the “relevant department” by Presidents, Governors, and Mayors, who are specifically referring to a cabinet department answering to them. This usage is very infrequent, because it refers to the cabinet-level department in the chain of command, excluding the component agencies below that.