Australian constitutional law is the area of the law of Australia relating to the interpretation and application of the Constitution of Australia. Legal cases regarding Australian constitutional law are often handled by the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian judicial system. Several major doctrines of Australian constitutional law have developed.
The 1913 Australian referendum was held on 31 May 1913. It contained six referendum questions and was held in conjunction with the 1913 federal election.
Kable v DPP, is a decision of the High Court of Australia. It is a significant case in Australian constitutional law.
Amalgamated Society of Engineers v Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd, commonly known as the Engineers case, was a landmark decision by the High Court of Australia on 31 August 1920. The immediate issue concerned the Commonwealth's power under s51(xxxv) of the Constitution but the court did not confine itself to that question, using the opportunity to roam broadly over constitutional interpretation.
Australian Capital Television v Commonwealth, is a decision of the High Court of Australia.
The separation of powers in Australia is the division of the institutions of the Australian government into legislative, executive and judicial branches. This concept is where legislature makes the laws, the executive put the laws into operation, and the judiciary interprets the laws; all independently of each other. The term, and its occurrence in Australia, is due to the text and structure of the Australian Constitution, which derives its influences from democratic concepts embedded in the Westminster system, the doctrine of "responsible government" and the United States version of the separation of powers. However, due to the conventions of the Westminster system, a strict separation of powers is not always evident in the Australian political system, with little separation between the executive and the legislature, with the executive required to be drawn from, and maintain the confidence of, the legislature; a fusion.
Section 109 of the Constitution of Australia is the part of the Constitution of Australia that deals with the legislative inconsistency between federal and state laws, and declares that valid federal laws override inconsistent state laws, to the extent of the inconsistency. Section 109 is analogous to the Supremacy Clause in the United States Constitution and the paramountcy doctrine in Canadian constitutional jurisprudence, and the jurisprudence in one jurisdiction is considered persuasive in the others.
The reserved powers doctrine was a principle used by the inaugural High Court of Australia in the interpretation of the Constitution of Australia, that emphasised the context of the Constitution, drawing on principles of federalism, what the Court saw as the compact between the newly formed Commonwealth and the former colonies, particularly the compromises that informed the text of the constitution. The doctrine involved a restrictive approach to the interpretation of the specific powers of the Federal Parliament to preserve the powers that were intended to be left to the States. The doctrine was challenged by the new appointments to the Court in 1906 and was ultimately abandoned by the High Court in 1920 in the Engineers' Case, replaced by an approach to interpretation that emphasised the text rather than the context of the Constitution.
In Australian constitutional law, chapter III courts are courts of law which are a part of the Australian federal judiciary and thus are able to discharge Commonwealth judicial power. They are so named because the prescribed features of these courts are contained in chapter III of the Australian Constitution.
New South Wales v Commonwealth is a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia, which held that the federal government's WorkChoices legislation was a valid exercise of federal legislative power under the Constitution of Australia. In essence, the majority found the Constitution's corporations power capable of sustaining the legislative framework, while the conciliation and arbitration and territories powers were also seen as supporting parts of the law. Furthermore, the majority also held that the legislation permissibly limited State powers and did not interfere with State constitutions or functioning. A minority dissented.
Commonwealth v Bank of New South Wales, was a Privy Council decision that affirmed the High Court of Australia's decision in Bank of New South Wales v Commonwealth, promoting the theory of "individual rights" to ensure freedom of interstate trade and commerce. The case dealt primarily with Section 92 of the Constitution of Australia.
In Kruger v Commonwealth, decided in 1997, also known as the Stolen Generation Case, the High Court of Australia rejected a challenge to the validity of legislation applying in the Northern Territory between 1918 and 1957 which authorised the removal of Aboriginal children from their families. The majority of the bench found that the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 was beneficial in intent and had neither the purpose of genocide nor that of restricting the practice of religion. The High Court unanimously held there was no separate action for a breach of any constitutional right.
Austin v Commonwealth, is a High Court of Australia case that deals with issues of intergovernmental immunity and discrimination of states against Commonwealth power.
D'Emden v Pedder was a significant Australian court case decided in the High Court of Australia on 26 April 1904. It directly concerned the question of whether salary receipts of federal government employees were subject to state stamp duty, but it touched on the broader issue within Australian constitutional law of the degree to which the two levels of Australian government were subject to each other's laws.
Section 116 of the Constitution of Australia precludes the Commonwealth of Australia from making laws for establishing any religion, imposing any religious observance, or prohibiting the free exercise of any religion. Section 116 also provides that no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. The product of a compromise in the pre-Federation constitutional conventions, Section 116 is based on similar provisions in the United States Constitution. However, Section 116 is more narrowly drafted than its US counterpart, and does not preclude the states of Australia from making such laws.
New South Wales v Commonwealth, commonly known as the Wheat case, or more recently as the Inter-State Commission case, is a landmark Australian judgment of the High Court made in 1915 regarding judicial separation of power. It was also a leading case on the freedom of interstate trade and commerce that is guaranteed by section 92 of the Constitution.
In Australia, the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity defines the circumstances in which Commonwealth laws can bind the States, and where State laws can bind the Commonwealth. This is distinct from the doctrine of crown immunity, as well as the rule expressed in Section 109 of the Australian Constitution which governs conflicts between Commonwealth and State laws.
Federated Amalgamated Government Railway & Tramway Service Association v NSW Rail Traffic Employees Association, known as the Railway Servants Case, is an early High Court of Australia case that held that employees of State railways could not be part of an interstate industrial dispute under the conciliation and arbitration power, applying the doctrine of "implied inter-governmental immunities". The doctrine was emphatically rejected by the High Court in the 1920 Engineers' Case, and in 1930 the High Court upheld the validity of an award binding on state railway authorities.
McGinty v Western Australia, was a significant case decided in the High Court of Australia in 1996. The plaintiffs sought to enshrine the principle of ‘one vote, one value’ in the Australian Constitution, and has had a significant impact on how the High Court approaches matters of the franchise, as well as malapportionment. The plaintiff's submissions were unanimously rejected by the court, who found that the interpretation of sections 7 and 24 of the Australian Constitution did not require that all votes hold the same value. The High Court exercised its original jurisdiction in hearing the matter, meaning that the case did not need to proceed as an appeal from the Supreme Court of Western Australia.
Section 122 of the Constitution of Australia deals with matters relating to the governance of Australian territories. It gives the Commonwealth Parliament complete legislative power over the territories. This power is called the territories power. The extent and terms of the representation of the territories in the House of Representatives and the Senate are also stated as being at the discretion of the Commonwealth Parliament.
