Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This study contributes comparative evidence to a longstanding debate about what kinds of institutional checks and balances best promote rights enhancing policy moderation.One side in the debate sees moderation flowing from a "dialogue" between dispassionate courts exercising "strong-form" review and impassioned (hence extremist) legislatures.The other side, believing that courtroom "rights talk" fans the flames of extremist polarization, stresses the moderating influence of other (generally more "political") checks and balances.In this second view, courts can indeed contribute to a moderating inter-branch "dialogue," but are more apt to have this beneficial influence when they exercise some kind of "weak-form" review.Canada (with its 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms) and Australia (with its ongoing rejection of a constitutional bill of rights) are two otherwise similar regimes that have positioned themselves on opposite sidesindeed at opposite endsof this debate.As such, they present obvious and attractive candidates for comparative analysis.Our question thus concerns the fate of policy moderation in these two countries.
DOI: 10.11575/prism/3772
Author: Banfield, Andrew Criag
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: ACT Government
OpenAlex ID: W3104806586