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the rule of law: a fundamental principle
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other house are for the benefit of Australia rather than the government, and include no instances of discrimination. The judiciary also exercises the power to control legislation if it is deemed not in accordance with the ‘rule of law’. This was proven in the landmark case of Chu Keng Lim vs Minister for Immigration. Parliament had amended the migration act to provide for the compulsory detention of certain designated persons who could not be released from custody by an order of the court.
The high court rejected this legislation stating that it was “ beyond the legislative power of parliament to invest the executive with an arbitrary to detain citizens in custody not withstanding that the power was conferred in terms which sought to divorce such detention in custody from both punishment and criminal guilt. Putting to one side exceptional circumstances the involuntary detention of a citizen in custody by the state is penal or punitive in character and exists only as an incident of the exclusively judicial function of adjudging and punishing criminal guilt.
Every citizen is “ ruled by the law and the law alone” and may with us be punished for a breach of law but he can be punished for nothing else.” The judiciary also applies a system of precedent which allows for consistency in decisions but still provides for individual circumstances. This insures that there is no discrimination between people. Although all current conventions comply with the ‘rule of law’, the constitution does not guarantee it and provides for things such as the arbitrary exercise of power by the Governor General. However in Emy
Hughes publication Australian Politics it states that “ the court reasoned that that since the constitution could be presumed to authorise a system of
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.
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.
Nowadays, the Australian legal system has three powers, which are legislative, executive and judicial. Legislative power is in charge of making the laws; subsequently those laws will be passed to the executive power to administer the laws it...
This paper has argued that the Supreme Court of Canada has adopted a quasi-legislative role in their decision making as a result of the Charter or Rights and Freedoms, 1982.The broad and liberal interpretation of charter language, for better or worse has and will continue to influence Canadian politics and the formulation and adoption of public policy.
Cases on the foundations of a constitutional order, such as parliamentary sovereignty, tend to be rare in any event. But what makes R (Jackson) v. Attorney General [2005] U.K.HL. 56; [2006] 1 A.C. 262 a significant case, is the dicta regarding constitutional issues mentioned by the judges in relation to parliamentary sovereignty. The discussions of the central issues in the case are in many ways constitutionally orthodox, treating the primary concerns as that of statutory interpretation and adopting a literal interpretation of the 1911 Act. By contrast, the discussion of the wider issues suggest that the judiciary may have support for what could be classed as unorthodox opinions on the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. The concept of parliamentary sovereignty is to be considered as a mere ideology in the eyes of the legislature, as the modern day practical sovereign parliament is far from that of the theory.
The High Court held the detention was lawful under the Migration Act and constitutionally valid:
This type of legislation has been devised to allow for the detention of people based upon assessments of risk of re-offending, this essay will explore the concerns with these practices. This essay further aims to explore the moral and practical implications of such sentencing provisions and the impact it has on the whole Justice System. The writer will also address the conflicting goals of Corrections and the purpose and impact of indefinite sentencing while exploring the justifications against such legislation. This essay also aims to show that even though we may feel disgust for these types of offences we must remember the fundamentals of the Criminal Law system and understand that people are entitled to equality and fairness in the eyes of the law.
Larkin, ‘Debunking the idea of Parliamentary Sovereignty: The Controlling Factor of Legality in the British Constitution’ (2008) OJLS 709 2, p 61.
... limitation is necessary. In addition, it is being seen as taking account every history and context of the case in making decisions, rather simply judging the case according to the words of provisions. Gleeson CJ in Roach also stated the consideration that the historical context and circumstances in the case is also protected by the sections 7 and 24 of the Constitution. Therefore, the decision of the Rowe is consistent with the Constitution’s implied right and the notion of representative democracy in Australia.
The RP helps to keep our powers separated which avoiding the judicial tyranny. After the formation of the two houses of parliament, which called the legislature, the creation of our statutes prevail to the RP. In the case of De Kayser, RP and statute found to co-exist and statute prevails, for the reason that the representatives in the House of Commons are elected from the public in order to create statute to help the development of the country. Moreover, the constitutional conventions are also part of our unwritten constitution and have conflict to the royal prerogative. Some of the RP powers are included to the conventions such as the automatic granting of royal assent, which the Queen should sign after the convention. Finally, the fire brigades union case mentioned that the executive cannot exercise the prerogative in a way which would derogate from the due fulfilment of statutory duty. The data indicates that the current prime minister, has power to overrule the UK’s parliament recent vote of a military intervention in Syria by using the RP which bypass any common decision of acts of war. Generally, powers such as the parliamentary immunity and prerogative powers, destroy the equality and justice of the society, by giving permission, to avoid the soft process of the legitimate society and finally breaking the rule of law. Supporting this argument, a member of parliament, Jack Straw strongly
In "a view from the Bridge", justice and law are not presented as being synonymous.
Robert N. Clinton, ‘Judges Must Make Law: A Realistic Appraisal of the Judicial Function in a Democratic Society’ [1981-1982] 67 Iowa L. Rev. 711 http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/ilr67&div=38&g_sent=1&collection=journals accessed 12 February 2012
The rule of law, simply put, is a principle that no one is above the law. This means that there should be no leniency for a person because of peerage, sex, religion or financial standing. England and Wales do not have a written constitution therefore the Rule of Law, which along with the parliamentary Sovereignty was regarded by legal analyst A.C Dicey, as the pillars of the UK Constitution. The Rule of Law was said to be adopted as the “unwritten constitution of Great Britain”.
There simply is no alternate system of laws that can maintain the calm and peaceful environment for people of the world besides “law”. One can easily see the need for each and every nation to enforce its own set of rules. While all of the countries of the world have their own individuality – they all have one considerable feature which is a system of law. It has no significance what type of government is the command, the rules are all appropriate to the people in their community.
The rule of law is thought to be one of the most fundamental doctrines of the constitution of the whole of the United Kingdom. The distinctive UK‘s constitution has influences previously on the judicial system too. Government and the legal systems in history have both been involved in rules and discretion and most of all the elimination of all discretionary power in which both of these are impossible and unwanted. The rule of law means in one sense, government by the law but obviously government is by the people as well as by the law. As soon as the governing people are added in, the government can’t then be by law on there own. Although the situation is not undoubtedly as the making of particular laws can be guided by open and relatively stable general laws that have been made. For the Rule of Law to have meaning in a democratic society, it has to mean that those who run it have comply with it for it to work; there must be no room for an “ends justifies the means”