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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

a Bill of Rights « Previous | |Next »
July 23, 2007

Rt Hon Sir Harry Gibbs:

A Bill of Rights is no substitute for a division of power in imposing restraints on the ill-advised exercise of power. Whereas a society that values moderation (as Australia has traditionally done) seeks to balance the rights of one individual against those of another, under a Bill of Rights supremacy is given to the particular rights favoured by prevailing ideology, causing in some cases absurdity and injustice.

Why so?:
If it is impossible for governments to resist the fashionable clamour for a Bill of Rights, at least it is to be hoped that no attempt is made to entrench constitutionally a Bill of Rights, thus giving to the judiciary a power greater than that of Parliament to decide matters of policy and in consequence politicising the judiciary.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:15 PM |