Introduction

Enid Campbell; H. P. Lee

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139028431.002

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2012

Enid Campbell and

H. P. Lee

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Enid Campbell: Affiliation:
Monash University, Victoria
H. P. Lee: Affiliation:
Monash University, Victoria

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Summary

[T]he judiciary is the one branch of government which is an unlikelycandidate as despot; despite the great powers which it is capable ofexercising, especially in the area of judicial review, it remains very muchat the mercy of the other arms of government.

The Rt Hon Sir Ninian Stephen

The importance of the judiciary

In a democracy, constitutional government is ensured by a system of checks andbalances. In his 1908 analysis of the notion of constitutional government, DrWoodrow Wilson identified among the essential elements and institutions of aconstitutional system, ‘[a] judiciary with substantial and independentpowers, secure against all corrupting or perverting influences; secure, also,against the arbitrary authority of the government itself’. Dr Wilson wenton to describe the courts as the ‘balance-wheel’ of aconstitutional system. He described the importance of a judicial forum in thepreservation of the liberty of the individual and the integrity of thegovernment in the following terms:

There the individual may assert his rights; there the government must acceptdefinition of its authority. There the individual may challenge the legalityof governmental action and have it judged by the test of fundamentalprinciples, and that test the government must abide; there the governmentcan check the too aggressive self-assertion of the individual and establishits power upon lines which all can comprehend and heed. The constitutionalpowers of the courts constitute the ultimate safeguard alike of individualprivilege and of governmental prerogative. It is in this sense that ourjudiciary is the balance-wheel of our entire system; it is meant to maintainthat nice adjustment between individual rights and governmental powers whichconstitutes political liberty.

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Australian Judiciary , pp. 1 - 19

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139028431.002 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2012

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