Books

Melissa Crouch 

Since the mid-20th century, many postcolonial states have engaged in multiple constitution-making exercises, with the turnover in written constitutions often due to coups or internal conflict. Conversely, people have resisted authoritarian rule through alternative constitution-making. The reality that most countries have had numerous official and unofficial constitutional texts begs the question: How do past constitutions matter in the present? 

Harry Hobbs and Jeremy Patrick (eds). 

Traditionally law has been viewed as a system of rules to be analysed and applied with mechanical logic. But instead of thinking of law as a “closed” system that can only be understood through traditional legal research and analysis, it can be conceptualised as an “open” system in which insights, approaches, and influences from other disciplines can be brought to bear. Beyond Doctrine: Alternative and Critical Approaches to Law is the first comprehensive Australian resource for approaching law as something more than a system of rules.

Rebecca Ananian-Welsh, Sean Brennan, Andrew Lynch, Peta Stephenson and George Williams 

Leading constitutional law scholars George Williams, Sean Brennan and Andrew Lynch are joined by Rebecca Ananian-Welsh and Peta Stephenson for the 8th edition of this acclaimed book on Australian constitutional law. 

The book has been fully revised and updated to include the most recent High Court and overseas decisions, including NZYQ v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs (2023), Benbrika v Minister for Home Affairs (2023), Farm Transparency International Ltd v New South Wales (2022), Alexander v Minister for Home Affairs (2022), Chetcuti v Commonwealth (2021), Palmer v Western Australia (2021), LibertyWorks Inc v Commonwealth (2021), Love v Commonwealth (2020) and Work Health Authority v Outback Ballooning (2019) and Spence v Queensland (2019).

George Williams & Megan Davis 

In late 2023 Australians will vote in a referendum on enshrining an Indigenous Voice to parliament and government in the Constitution. What benefits will it bring? And what was the journey to this point? 

Everything You Need to Know about the Voice, written by co-author of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Cobble Cobble woman Megan Davis, and fellow constitutional expert George Williams, is essential reading on the Voice to parliament and government, how our Constitution was drafted, what the 1967 referendum achieved, what it left unfinished and the Uluru Statement. This updated edition charts the journey of this nation-building reform from the earliest stages of Indigenous advocacy, explores myths and misconceptions and, importantly, explains how the Voice offers change that will benefit the whole nation.

Melissa Crouch (ed) 

This volume, with chapters written by leading experts, explores the ongoing debates over the meaning, implementation, and practice of constitutional democracy in Indonesia. This includes debates over the powers of the legislature, the role of the military, the scope of decentralisation, the protection of rights and permissible limits on rights, the regulation of elections, the watchdog role of accountability agencies, and the leading role of the Constitutional Court. These legal issues are analysed in light of the contemporary social, political, and economic environment that has seen a decline in tolerance, freedom, and respect for minorities. Contributions to this volume review the past two decades of reform in Indonesia and assess the challenges to the future of constitutional democracy amidst the wide-spread consensus on the decline of democracy in Indonesia. Demands for amendments to the Constitution and calls to revert to its initial form would be a reversal of Indonesia's democratic gains.

Rosalind Dixon 

Democratic dysfunction can arise in both 'at risk' and well-functioning constitutional systems. It can threaten a system's responsiveness to both minority rights claims and majoritarian constitutional understandings. Responsive Judicial Review aims to counter this dysfunction using examples from both the global north and global south, including leading constitutional courts in the US, UK, Canada, India, South Africa, and Colombia, as well as select aspects of the constitutional jurisprudence of courts in Australia, Fiji, Hong Kong, and Korea.

Rosalind Dixon & Richard Holden 

A new vision of liberalism that is fair and capable of responding to the challenges of a post-COVID world.
 
Liberalism—and its promise of market-led prosperity—was in crisis well before COVID-19. Recent decades have seen a rise in concentrated unemployment and long-term stagnation in real wages in many of the world's leading economies. At the same time, the world has witnessed a dramatic rise of corporate power, concentration of wealth. and the failure of liberal societies to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. To survive, liberalism will need a radical reboot-to find new ways of tackling the current challenges posed by corporate power, inequality, and climate change.

George Williams and Harry Hobbs 

Political disagreement is a fact of life. It can prompt people to stand for public office and agitate for political change. Others take a different route; they start their own nation. Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty is the first comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of people purporting to secede and create their own country. It analyses why micronations are not states for the purposes of international law, considers the factors that motivate individuals to separate and found their own nation, examines the legal justifications that they offer and explores the responses of recognised sovereign states. In doing so, this book develops a rich body of material through which to reflect on conventional understandings of statehood, sovereignty and legitimate authority. Authored in a lively and accessible style, Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty will be valuable reading for scholars and general audiences.

Gabrielle Appleby, Anna Olijnyk, James Stellios and John Williams 

Judicial Federalism in Australia: History, Theory, Doctrine and Practice provides a holistic analysis of the federal influence of Chapter III. It considers the historical underpinnings of the Chapter, tracing its development from the colonial justice system through the convention debates and into the first years of Federation. It then provides an overview of the theoretical and doctrinal development of Australia’s Chapter III jurisprudence as it relates to the States and Territories and how it has affected the operation of the federation. Finally, the book provides, for the first time, an empirical study of the effect of the Court’s Chapter III jurisprudence on the development of State and Territory policies, focusing on anti-organised crime initiatives, the introduction of administrative super tribunals and specialist courts such as drug courts and Indigenous sentencing courts.

Janina Boughey and Katie Miller (eds)

This book explores the implications, challenges and opportunities that automating government functions presents for our system of public law. It asks whether the laws and institutions we have in place to ensure accountability and transparency in government are fit for purpose in an age of automation. The book brings together judges, senior public servants, practitioners, and law and technology academics to interrogate these issues and find solutions that are workable from legal, technology and policy perspectives.

Melissa Crouch (eds)

Courts can play an important role in addressing issues of inequality, discrimination and gender injustice for women. The feminisation of the judiciary – both in its thin meaning of women's entrance into the profession, as well as its thicker forms of realising gender justice – is a core part of the agenda for gender equality. This volume acknowledges both the diversity of meanings of the feminisation of the judiciary, as well as the complexity of the social and cultural realisation of gender equality. Containing original empirical studies, this book demonstrates the past and present challenges women face to entering the judiciary and progressing their career, as well as when and why they advocate for women's issues while on the bench. From stories of pioneering women to sector-wide institutional studies of the gender composition of the judiciary, this book reflects on the feminisation of the judiciary in the Asia-Pacific.

Rosalind Dixon & David Landau

Law is fast globalizing as a field, and many lawyers, judges and political leaders are engaged in a process of comparative "borrowing". But this new form of legal globalization has darksides: it is not just a source of inspiration for those seeking to strengthen and improve democratic institutions and policies. It is increasingly an inspiration - and legitimation device - for those seeking to erode democracy by stealth, under the guise of a form of faux liberal democratic cover. 
 
Abusive Constitutional Borrowing: Legal globalization and the subversion of liberal democracy outlines this phenomenon, how it succeeds, and what we can do to prevent it. This book address current patterns of democratic retrenchment and explores its multiple variants and technologies, considering the role of legitimating ideologies that help support different modes of abusive constitutionalism.

Gabrielle Appleby and Andrew Lynch (eds)

The Judge, the Judiciary and the Court is aimed at anyone interested in the Australian judiciary today. It examines the impact of the individual on the judicial role, while exploring the collegiate environment in which judges must operate. This professional community can provide support but may also present its own challenges within the context of a particular court's relational dynamic and culture. The judge and the judiciary form the 'court', an institution grounded in a set of constitutional values that will influence how judges and the judiciary perform their functions. This collection brings together analysis of the judicial role that highlights these unique aspects, particularly in the Australian setting. Through the lenses of judicial leadership, diversity, collegiality, dissent, style, technology, the media and popular culture, it analyses how judges work individually and as a collective to protect and promote the institutional values of the court.

Melissa Castan, Maria O’Sullivan, Lisa Burton Crawford and Janina Boughey

This book provides an engaging, comprehensive and reader-friendly overview of Australian public law institutions and principles, together with the principles and process of statutory interpretation. This book is the first text to draw these two topics together to clearly explain how the principles of statutory interpretation reflect the constitutional relationship between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.

George Williams and Megan Davis

We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future. 

Everything You Need to Know about the Uluru Statement from the Heart, written by Megan Davis and George Williams, two of Australia’s best-known constitutional experts, is essential reading on how our Constitution was drafted, what the 1967 referendum achieved, and the lead-up and response to the Uluru Statement. Importantly, it explains how the Uluru Statement offers change that will benefit the whole nation.

George Williams & Harry Hobbs

The leading book on the treaty debate in Australia has been fully revised. The second edition takes a fresh look at modern treaty-making between Indigenous peoples and governments in Australia. Exploring the why, where and how of treaty, it concludes by offering seven strategies for achieving treaty.

Janina Boughey and Lisa Burton Crawford (eds)

The breadth of executive power is a topic of enduring concern, yet it is rarely considered through an interpretive lens. This collection of papers from some of Australia’s leading judges, practitioners and academics explores how Australian courts do construe the scope of executive power, and how they should.

Janina Boughey, Ellen Rock and Greg Weeks

Given the degree of power wielded by Australian government officials and entities, it is unsurprising that government decisions and conduct frequently impact on individuals. To find the most appropriate way to resolve a particular case, practitioners must be able to work across the traditional legal ‘silos’, drawing on public and private law principles as well as the important, and often under-valued, roles of non-legal accountability mechanisms. This book familiarises readers with some of the complexities underpinning this area and covers public law remedies, private law remedies, and statutory remedies.

Janina Boughey, Matthew Groves and Dan Meagher (eds)

How do you protect rights without a Bill of Rights? Australia does not have a national bill or charter of rights and looks further away than ever from adopting one. But it does have a range of individual elements sourced from common law, statute and the Constitution which, though unsystematic, do provide Australians with some meaningful rights protection. This book outlines and explains the unique human rights journey of Australia. It moves beyond the criticisms long made of the Australian position – that its 'formalism', 'legalism' and 'exceptionalism' compromise its capacity for rights protection – to consider how the many elements of its novel legal structure operate. This book analyses the interlocking legal framework for the protection of rights in Australia. A key theme of the book is that the many different elements of a fragmented scheme can add up to something significant, albeit with significant gaps and flaws like any other legal rights protection framework. It shows how the jumbled influences of a common law heritage, a written constitution, differing paths taken by jurisdictions within a single federal state, statutory and common law innovations and a strong dose of comparative legal influences have led to the unique patchwork of rights protection in Australia. It will provide valuable reading for all those researching in human rights, constitutional and comparative law.

Melissa Crouch

This timely and accessible book is the first to provide a thorough analysis of the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar (Burma) in its historical, political and social context. The book identifies and articulates the principles of the Constitution through an in-depth analysis of legal and political processes and practises, particularly since the 1990s. The core argument of this book is that the 2008 Constitution is crucial to the establishment and maintenance of the military-state. The military-state promotes the leadership role of the military in governance based on a set of ideological commitments and a centralised form of organisation based on the concept of the Union. The book develops this argument by demonstrating how the process of constitution-making and the substance of the 2008 Constitution contribute to its lack of credibility and fuel demands for reform. The vision offered by the 2008 Constitution and its associated institutions has been the subject of fierce contestation, not least, for example, due to concerns over the militarisation of the state. This book is animated by debates over fundamental ideas such as the nature of democracy, the possibility of peace and federalism, the relationship between the executive and the legislature, relations between the Union government and sub-national governments, debates over judicial independence and the oversized role of the Tatmadaw (armed forces). Central to the future of the Constitution and the military-state is the role of the Tatmadaw, which will be a key determinant in any potential shift from the present highly centralised, partly-democratic Union to a federal or decentralised democratic system of governance.

Rosalind Dixon, Gregoire Webber and Geoffrey Sigalet (eds)

The metaphor of 'dialogue' has been put to different descriptive and evaluative uses by constitutional and political theorists studying interactions between institutions concerning rights. It has also featured prominently in the opinions of courts and the rhetoric and deliberations of legislators. This volume brings together many of the world's leading constitutional and political theorists to debate the nature and merits of constitutional dialogues between the judicial, legislative, and executive branches. Constitutional Dialogue explores dialogue's democratic significance, examines its relevance to the functioning and design of constitutional institutions, and covers constitutional dialogues from an international and transnational perspective.

Lisa Burton Crawford, Patrick Emerton and Dale Smith (eds)

Jeffrey Goldsworthy is a renowned constitutional scholar and legal theorist whose work on the powers of Parliament and the interpretation of constitutional and statute laws has helped shape debates on these topics across the English-speaking world. The importance of democratic constitutionalism is central to Professor Goldsworthy's work: it lies at the heart of his defence of Parliamentary supremacy and shapes his approach to both constitutional and statutory interpretation. In honour of Professor Goldsworthy's retirement, this collection provides new perspectives from a range of leading public law scholars and theorists on the legal and philosophical principles that govern the making and interpretation of laws in a constitutional democracy. It also addresses some of the challenges to democratic constitutionalism that have arisen in light of contemporary developments in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Melissa Crouch (eds)

Indonesia is the world's third largest democracy and its courts are an important part of its democratic system of governance. Since the transition from authoritarian rule in 1998, a range of new specialised courts have been established from the Commercial Courts to the Constitutional Court and the Fisheries Court. In addition, constitutional and legal changes have affirmed the principle of judicial independence and accountability. The growth of Indonesia's economy means that the courts are facing greater demands to resolve an increasing number of disputes. This volume offers an analysis of the politics of court reform through a review of judicial change and legal culture in Indonesia. A key concern is whether the reforms that have taken place have addressed the issues of the decline in professionalism and increase in corruption. This volume will be a vital resource for scholars of law, political science, law and development, and law and society.

Rosalind Dixon and Theunis Roux (eds)

The 1996 South African Constitution was promulgated on 18th December 1996 and came into effect on 4th February 1997. Its aspirational provisions promised to transform South Africa's economy and society along non-racial and egalitarian lines. Following the twentieth anniversary of its enactment, this book, co-edited by Rosalind Dixon and Theunis Roux, examines the triumphs and disappointments of the Constitution. It explains the arguments in favor of the Constitution being replaced with a more authentically African document, untainted by the necessity to compromise with ruling interests predominant at the end of apartheid. Others believe it remains a landmark attempt to create a society based on social, economic, and political rights for all citizens, and that its true implementation has yet to be achieved. This volume considers whether the problems South Africa now faces are of constitutional design or implementation, and analyses the Constitution's external influence on constitutionalism in other parts of the world.

Rosalind Dixon (eds)

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.

Rosalind Dixon and Tom Ginsburg (eds)

This book provides unique insights into the practice of democratic constitutionalism in one of the world’s most legally and politically significant regions. It combines contributions from leading Latin American and global scholars to provide ‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’ insights about the lessons to be drawn from the distinctive constitutional experiences of countries in Latin America. In doing so, it also draws on a rich array of legal and interdisciplinary perspectives. Ultimately, it shows both the promise of democratic constitutions as a vehicle for social, economic and political change, and the variation in the actual constitutional experiences of different countries on the ground – or the limits to constitutions as a locus for broader social change.

Daniel Reynolds and George Williams 

Australia does not have a bill or charter of rights, which means there is no comprehensive law that enshrines human rights in Australia – even though these laws are standard in the rest of the developed world. So what does this mean for the rights of Australian citizens? 

In this fully revised fourth edition of A Charter of Rights for Australia, George Williams and Daniel Reynolds show that human rights are not adequately protected in Australia, contrary to what many of us think.

George Williams, Sean Brennan and Andrew Lynch

This is the new and fully updated edition of the acclaimed and authoritative book on Australian constitutional law. Fresh material reflects the contemporary approach of the High Court including its emphasis on statutory interpretation as a tool of constitutional analysis.