Religious Authority in Public Spaces: The Challenge of Jurisdictional Pluralism

The new significance of religion in Australian politics raises serious questions about how our politics is conceived and conducted. Liberal theorists have proposed three successive approaches to resolving the problem of religious disagreement in a diverse society. The first was to propose that reason, rather than religion, should bind the society together; that individuals should be free to continue to practice their religion privately, but that religion must no longer play a guiding role in public life. The second liberal solution was to extend the prohibition to all ‘comprehensive doctrines’, whether religious or secular, and to insist that state power must only operate on the basis of ‘public reasons’ that any sensible person could in principle understand and accept. The third liberal solution is to propose that secular reason and religious conviction operate in a deliberative dialogue with each other, in which each recognises its limitations and its reliance on the other. However, relationship between religion and politics is today being challenged by a new development that neither of these approaches can really address. This development is the emergence and intensification of legal and jurisdictional pluralism. Jurisdictional pluralism challenges the liberal settlement, not by threatening to ‘take over’ the state as such, but by developing alternative forms of public order that exist alongside those of the state. This development requires us to think about the relationship between religion and the state in a different way: one in which religion doesn’t simply inhabit spaces that are private while the state possesses monopolistic control over the public sphere. In the new religious politics, religion seeks to define, create and inhabit spaces that are just about as public as those governed by the secular state. This is a situation that our politics has only just begun to think about

Courts in Federal Countries

Courts are key players in the dynamics of federal countries since their rulings have a direct impact on the ability of governments to centralize and decentralize power. Courts in Federal Countries examines the role high courts play in thirteen countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Nigeria, Spain, and the United States. The volume’s contributors analyse the centralizing or decentralizing forces at play following a court’s ruling on issues such as individual rights, economic affairs, social issues, and other matters. The thirteen substantive chapters have been written to facilitate comparability between the countries. Each chapter outlines a country’s federal system, explains the constitutional and institutional status of the court system, and discusses the high court’s jurisprudence in light of these features. Courts in Federal Countries offers insightful explanations of judicial behaviour in the world’s leading federations

Courts in Federal Countries

Courts are key players in the dynamics of federal countries since their rulings have a direct impact on the ability of governments to centralize and decentralize power. Courts in Federal Countries examines the role high courts play in thirteen countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Nigeria, Spain, and the United States. The volume’s contributors analyse the centralizing or decentralizing forces at play following a court’s ruling on issues such as individual rights, economic affairs, social issues, and other matters. The thirteen substantive chapters have been written to facilitate comparability between the countries. Each chapter outlines a country’s federal system, explains the constitutional and institutional status of the court system, and discusses the high court’s jurisprudence in light of these features. Courts in Federal Countries offers insightful explanations of judicial behaviour in the world’s leading federations

Real constitutional reform after Fitzgerald: Still waiting for Godot

The Fitzgerald Inquiry, although initially focused upon matters such as maladministration and corruption, placed significant emphasis on the reform of Queensland’s political and public administration system as a whole. It is therefore in relation to its practical impact within the context of that system that the Fitzgerald Report ought to be assesses. However, despite widespread support for the report’s recommendations, recent events in Queensland concerning such matters as corruption, maladministration, lobbying, cronyism and secrecy suggest that the report has failed to deliver on its most basic objectives. This article argues that although the Fitzgerald Report drew attention to and sought to address systemic problems of various kinds, it has largely failed in its intentions because the changes that it proposed could not be sustained in the context of Queensland’s existing constitutional framework and particular system of Westminster democracy, especially its high level of executive domination operating in the context of a unicameral parliament. The fact that so many of the Fitzgerald reforms were left to be sorted out by post-commission agencies working in such an environment means real reform has failed to flourish. Consequently, the Fitzgerald Report has met the same fate as so many other public inquiries into corruption in Australia, resulting in only minimal change to the way government is actually conducted. While as a result of the Fitzgerald Inquiry there has been widespread institutional restructuring in Queensland, the way of doing business in that state has hardly changed at all

A theory of plural constituent power for federal systems

Federations present difficulties for prevailing theories of constituent power, which usually attribute ultimate constitution-making authority to a singular people. This article examines how a ‘pluralized’ constituent power functions in federal systems. It argues that the operation of plural constituent power in federations reflects a distinctive model of constitutional formation according to which a ‘polity of polities’ is established and sustained through the maintenance of a tension between plurality and unity.</p