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.

"Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act" by Australia Government of the State of Victoria. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

The world appears to be globalising economically, technologically and even, to a halting extent, politically. This process of globalisation raises the possibility of an international legal framework, a possibility which has gained pressing relevance in the wake of the recent global economic crisis. But for any international legal framework to exist, normative agreement between countries, with very different political, economic, cultural and legal traditions, becomes necessary. This work explores the possibility of such a normative agreement through the prism of national constitutional norms. Since 1945, more than a hundred countries have adopted constitutional texts which incorporate, at least in part, a Bill of Rights. These texts reveal significant similarities; the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for instance, had a marked influence on the drafting of the Bill of Rights for South Africa, New Zealand and Hong Kong as well as the Basic Law of Israel. Similarly, the drafts of Eastern European constitutions reflect significant borrowing from older texts. The essays in this book examine the depth of these similarities; in particular the extent to which textual borrowings point to the development of foundational values in these different national legal systems and the extent of the similarities or differences between these values and the priorities accorded to them. From these national studies the work analyses the rise of constitutionalism since the Second World War, and charts the possibility of a consensus on values which might plausibly underpin an effective and legitimate international legal order.

This major collection contains selected papers from the second Public Law Conference, an international conference hosted by the University of Cambridge in September 2016. The collection includes contributions by leading academics and judges from across the common law world, including senior judges from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. The contributions engage with the theme of unity (and disunity) from a number of perspectives, offering a rich panoply of insights into public law which significantly carry forward public law thinking across common law jurisdictions, setting the agenda for future research and legal development. Part 1 of the volume contains chapters which offer doctrinal and theoretical perspectives. Some chapters seek to articulate a unifying framework for understanding public law, while others seek to demonstrate the plurality of public law through the method of legal taxonomy. A number of chapters analyse whether different fields such as human rights and administrative law are merging, with others considering specific unifying themes or concepts in public law. The chapters in Part 2 offer comparative perspectives, charting and analysing convergence and divergence across common law systems. Specific topics include standing, proportionality, human rights, remedies, use of foreign precedents, legal transplants, and disunity and unity among subnational jurisdictions. The collection will be of great interest to those working in public law.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this convenient resource provides systematic information on how Australia deals with the role religion plays or can play in society, the legal status of religious communities and institutions, and the legal interaction among religion, culture, education, and media. After a general introduction describing the social and historical background, the book goes on to explain the legal framework in which religion is approached. Coverage proceeds from the principle of religious freedom through the rights and contractual obligations of religious communities; international, transnational, and regional law effects; and the legal parameters affecting the influence of religion in politics and public life. Also covered are legal positions on religion in such specific fields as church financing, labour and employment, and matrimonial and family law. A clear and comprehensive overview of relevant legislation and legal doctrine make the book an invaluable reference source and very useful guide. Succinct and practical, this book will prove to be of great value to practitioners in the myriad instances where a law-related religious interest arises in Australia. Academics and researchers will appreciate its value as a thorough but concise treatment of the legal aspects of diversity and multiculturalism in which religion plays such an important part.