The Australian Constitution irrefutably achieves justice for the Australian people. Justice is crucial for the productivity and betterment of society, it refers to the notion of people being treated fairly and impartially by the abetriers of the law and the people in power. As U.S. President John Adams once stated; “I say, that power must never be trusted without a check”. Power and its influence must undoubtedly be balanced and extensively assessed for it to be deemed trustworthy and dependable. The Constitution of Australia provides this balance through the division of powers, the separation of powers as well as the High Court, bestowing Australians with equitability and thus, achieving justice for the people. The Constitution secures justice …show more content…
The institutions of the Australian government are divided into three branches, as specified in part V of the constitution. These are as follows: the legislature- as highlighted in chapter one, their power is directed at making and changing the law, the executive branch- as cited in chapter two, they are responsible for enforcing the law through government agencies, and the judiciary, whose power is restricted to interpreting the law- as specified in chapter three. Each branch works independently from the other, which in turn, allows the possibility of one branch holding the other accountable for any misuse of power. As a result, the individual rights of Australians are protected from the corruption of power by any one branch of government. This is highlighted in the case of Graham v Minister of Immigration. In the case, Peter Dutton- the minister of immigration and border protection, relied on a section of the migration act that stated that he was under no legal obligation to disclose information surrounding the cancellation of an individual’s visa, either to the party affected- in this case Mr Graham and Mr Te Puia, or to a court- be it the High Court or Federal Court. The High Court ultimately ruled Dutton’s decision invalid as the part of the migration act used by the defendant was in fact unconstitutional, as a court cannot properly exercise its power with …show more content…
It achieves this through the division of powers, the separation of powers as well as the High Court. John Adams once stated that “power must never be trusted without a check”. This remark holds profound significance to Australia’s various legal authorities. The division of powers distributes power across two levels- the exclusive powers and the residual powers, thereby regulating the distribution of control over Australians. The separation of powers divides the institutions of the Australian government into three branches- the legislative, the executive and the judiciary in order to enable the possibility of accountability- that is, that one power is able to hold the other accountable for any misuse of authority. Finally, the High Court plays a significant role in the pursuit of justice as they are responsible for interpreting and applying the law in cases that are of federal significance, protecting and developing the expressed and implied rights of Australians. Justice, which is vital for the welfare and betterment of society, refers to the notion of fairness and impartiality being upheld by the abetriers of the law and the people in power. The Constitution conclusively secures justice for the
The milestone judicial decision in Cole v Whitfield pronounced a pivotal moment in Australian jurisprudence in relation to the interpretation of s92 of the Australian constitution. This essay will critically analyse the constitutional interpretation approach utilised in Cole v Whitfield. This method will be compared with the interpretational methods exemplified in Commonwealth v Australian Capital Territory. Although within these two cases there appears to be a preference towards a particular interpretational method, each mode has both strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, the merit of each should be employed in conjunction with one another, where the court deems fit, complementing each other. This may provide a holistic approach to interpreting the constitution.
The decision for Australia to adopt the Federal system was on the principle of which the State’s governments wanted to keep their power. For this reason there was the separation of powers between the newly formed Commonwealth government and the existing State governments. At a constitutional level, there are rulings in which the powers are separated, these rulings due to disputes have slightly changed since 1901. These changes all fell towards the one government, the Commonwealth (Federal) government. However this was not just a landslide event, the Constitution of Australia set up this imbalance of powers between the Commonwealth and State governments. We will explore this further in the points discussed later in this essay.
Legal system is a comprehensive term that is used to confirm the existence of the law; it also explains the law-making process and how this is enforced on everyone. The Australian legal system regulates all level of governments, organisations, and all people whether they are Australian born or have migrated here, and they must obey Australia’s regulations. The legal system here was developed from the United Kingdom’s legal system, as Australia was a colony of the British. At a glance, the British government granted restricted rights to their colonies, including Australia to set local government system. This was intended to developed laws in local area, also to deal with specific situation at that time. As a result, the legal system in each of the colonies started to develop separately. According to Carvan J (2010) the Australian law is adopted from several sources, including the rules of equity, parliamentary laws, delegated legislations, judge-made laws, and international laws. (Austrlian Legal System, 2007)
For many years, the question of how adaptable and flexible the constitution is in Australia has been widely debated. As of now the atmosphere of verbal confrontation on protected change, has restored enthusiasm toward the issue in exploring whether the constitution is versatile and adaptable in meeting the needs of the nation following 100 years in being embraced.
A Constitution is a set of rules put in place to govern a country, by which the parliament, executive and judiciary must abide by in law making and administering justice. In many countries, these laws are easily changed, while in Australia, a referendum process must take place to alter the wording of the Constitution (Commonwealth of Australia, date unknown, South Australian Schools Constitutional Convention Committee 2001). Since the introduction of the Australian Constitution in January 1901, there have been sufficient proposals to alter and insert sections within the body to reflect the societal values of the day, ensuring the Constitution remains relevant to the Australian people. Although Constitutional reform can be made on a arrangement of matters, the latest protests on Indigenous recognition and racial references within the body of the Constitution has called into question the validity of racial inclusion, and whether amendments should be made to allow for recognition. This essay will focus on the necessity of these amendments and evaluate the likelihood of change through the process of referenda.
Our Constitution establishes three branches of government and defines their very existence. The reason for the three branches is to separate the powers. The phrase “separation of powers” isn’t in the constitution, but it best explains the intention of the Constitution. It is essential that the assignment of lawmaking, enforcing and interpreting be spread out among the separated powers to ensure that all power doesn’t fall into the lap of one group, or even a power-hungry individual. The powers of which I’m speaking that were intentionally separated by way of the Constitution are the Legislative Branch, Executive Branch and finally, the Judicial Branch.
Ozdowski, Sev. 2007. Why We Need an Australian Bill of Rights Now. Pg. 22-25. Swinburne Online Library. Viewed 19th December 2016.
Since the dawn of time for a society to work it needs to have a level of structure that applies to everyone and is understood by everyone. Australian legal system is broad and complex. It is the nature of the encompassing laws and regulations which reflect how people, organisations and governments behave on the many different levels of operation and these are created to make sure that everyone understands their rights and obligations. There are two sources of Law in Australia: Statute Law regulated by Parliament and comprise of legislations and acts; and Judge-made Law or Common Law where decisions made by judges are based on previous cases.
The Australian Legal System has a rich and detailed history dating from 1066. Law is made in Parliament. We have four sources of law and three courts with different jurisdictions that interpret the law when giving out justice. Important doctrines act as the corner-stones of our legal system. There is a procedure in the courts for making appeals. Separation of powers exists between officials in the courts, the parliament and the Executive. Everyone in Australia is treated equally under the Rule of Law, no matter their office or status. The Law is always changing as society changes, but it can never be perfect and cannot please everyone.
During the last June Liberal’s party meeting, the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott has put forward an immense proposal on Australia federalism as he states “it is time to make each level of government sovereign in its own sphere” (ABC, 2014). In his speech, Abbott says that the federation has great strengths but they are combined with buck passing, duplication, waste and inefficiency. Hence, by giving each level of government sovereign in its own sphere, Abbott is planning to hand more power to the States and limiting Commonwealth’s roles as specified in the White Paper on reform of the federation (DPMC, 2014). In response to Tony Abbott’s proposal, this essay will support the idea to reform the federation. To provide a comprehensive argument, I
Examples of these systems include secularism and the Australian constitution. Secularism is the separation of state from religious institutions, this means the government cannot establish a preferential religion and must provide citizens with the option to display belief or non-belief in religion. Also, the government must not support any religion and avoid preferential treatment whilst remaining neutral in all matters of religion. A constitution is a set of rules and outlines in which the elected government must govern and abide by. The Australian constitution was created in 1901 by the British parliament as a part of the commonwealth Act 1901.
The principle of separation of powers is laid out in Articles I, II, and III, in effort to avoid tyranny. It is a part of a system called check and balances. The check and balances play the roles of the three branches of government. This system was made so that no one branch will over power the other. The three branches come together and help one another by being independent of the other. The legislative branch consists of the Congress, the judicial branch consists of the courts, and the executive branch consists of the president. For an example, when a bill is in progress and the chief executive (president or governor) does not approve of it, he can reject legislation and return it to the legislature with reasons for the rejection. This is a process called veto power.
Public law is a classification of laws that regulate the relationship between individual citizens and the state. Furthermore public law itself is a product of the political ideology of a state and that it intrinsically involves several other disciplines such as economic and political theory. Public law is composed of key principles that ensures a functioning nation state. Such principles include parliamentary sovereignty which denotes to the Parliament’s ability to create or abolish statute law at will. The rule of law all are to be subject and are in reach of the law.
The case against a Bill of Rights as shown above includes the fact that it is foreign to our traditions and Australia has survived to date through its existing protection of basic rights. It is argued that a Bill of Right may provide too much power to the judges.
Kirby, M. 1997, ‘Bill of Rights for Australia – But do we need it?’, viewed 30 March 2014, < http://www.lawfoundation.net.au/ljf/app/&id=/A60DA51D4C6B0A51CA2571A7002069A0>