Books in the Hart Studies in Comparative Public Law series

This book looks at responsible government under the Australian Constitution. It undertakes a detailed examination of the history leading to the incorporation of responsible government into the Constitution, examining the political history and constitutional ideas which informed the framers' views. It draws on this history to develop a theory of responsible government and explore its implications for the interpretation of the Constitution and the structure of modern government in Australia. The book fills a major gap in our knowledge of the intellectual background of the Australian Constitution by explaining the constitutional ideas that have shaped the text and structure of the Australian Constitution. It contributes to worldwide debates about constitutional interpretation by showing how rigorous use of history can lead to novel interpretations of constitutions without being tied to the 'dead hands of the founders'.

Should judges defer to administrative decisions? This book examines how the common law of judicial review has responded to the development of the administrative state in three different common law jurisdictions-the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Canada-over the past one hundred years.

Based on interviews with judges, this book presents the inside story of how judges engage with international and comparative law in the highest courts of the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, France and the Netherlands.

"The chapters in this book were first presented at a workshop in New Delhi in March 2018, organised by the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), University of Pennsylvania, as part of its twenty-fifth-year celebrations."

Entick v Carrington is one of the canons of English public law and in 2015 it is 250 years old. In 1762 the Earl of Halifax, one of His Majesty''s Principal Secretaries of State, despatched Nathan Carrington and three other of the King''s messengers to John Entick''s house in Stepney. They broke into his house, seizing his papers and causing significant damage. Why? Because he was said to have written seditious papers published in the Monitor. Entick sued Carrington and the other messengers for trespass. The defendants argued that the Earl of Halifax had given them legal authority to act as they had. Lord Camden ruled firmly in Entick''s favour, holding that the warrant of a Secretary of State could not render lawful actions such as these which were otherwise unlawful. The case is a canonical statement of the common law''s commitment to the constitutional principle of the rule of law. In this collection, leading public lawyers reflect on the history of the case, the enduring importance of the legal principles for which it stands, and the broader implications of Entick v Carrington 250 years on.

The essays in this book provide an in-depth examination of normative agreements through the prism of national constitutional norms.

Inspired by the work of Professor Michael Taggart, this collection of essays from across the common law world is concerned with two separate but related themes. First, to what extent and by what means should review on substantive grounds such as unreasonableness be expanded and intensified? Jowell, Elliott and Varuhas all agree with Taggart that proportionality should not ''sweep the rainbow'', but propose different schemes for organising and conceptualising substantive review. Groves and Weeks, and Hoexter evaluate the state of substantive review in Australia and South Africa respectively.The second theme concerns the broader (Canadian) sense of substantive review including the illegality grounds, and whether deference should extend to these grounds. Cane and Aronson consider the relevance and impact of different constitutional and doctrinal settings. Wilberg and Daly address questions concerning when and how deference is to operate once it is accepted as appropriate in principle.Rights-based review is discussed in a separate third part because it raises both of the above questions. Geiringer, Sales and Walters examine the choices to be made in settling the approach in this area, each focusing on a different dichotomy.Taggart''s work is notable for treating these various aspects of substantive review as parts of a broader whole, and for his search for an appropriate balance between judicial scrutiny and administrative autonomy across this entire area. By bringing together essays on all these topics, this volume seeks to build on that approach.

Vigorous debate exists among constitutional scholars as to the appropriate ''modalities'' of constitutional argument, and their relative weight. Many scholars, however, argue that one important modality of constitutional argument involves attention to underlying constitutional purposes or ''values''. In Australia, this kind of values-oriented approach has been advocated by leading constitutional scholars, and also finds support in the judgments of the High Court at various times, particularly during the Mason Court era. Much of the scholarly debate on constitutional values to date, however, focuses on whether the Court should in fact look to constitutional values in this way, not the kinds of values the Court should consider, given such an approach. This book responds to this gap in the existing scholarly literature, by inviting a range of leading Australian constitutional lawyers and scholars to address the relevance and scope of various substantive constitutional values, and how they might affect the Court''s approach to constitutional interpretation in various contexts. It is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Australia''s constitutional system.