Late Update

This is my update for things that happened last week. Thankfully there isn't that much to report although there are a few interesting things.

It wasn't easy getting back into a scholarly rhythm following my trip to Adelaide but somehow I managed. Nothing truly remarkable happened at university but something else happened which may have an impact on my constitutional law course; more on that later.

On Saturday the senior divisions of the ACTAFL had their grand finals at Manuka Oval. I wasn't picked to be one of the goal umpires but I wouldn't have been able to do it anyway as I was working at ACTTAB. On that point, ACTTAB, for the first time, offered odds on the outcome of the Division 1 Grand Final. There were 3 grand finals that day but I could only attend the first, the Under-18s. It was an interesting game but was handily won by Marist College over Belconnen. I learned later that the Division 2 Grand Final was also a blowout but the Division 1 Grand Final was decided by 6 points and was close all match. I'm sorry I missed it but it was fun being at the footy, which doesn't happen very often. By the way, because I'm an umpire, I got in for free. Another thing I noticed was that between the quarters people spectators went onto the ground and had a kick around while the teams were in their huddles. This doesn't happen at the AFL anymore but I was told that it used to until about 30 years ago. I think it's kind of a shame that we've become so security conscious that people can't play around on the pitch during game breaks or storm the field after a particularly thrilling win.

I mentioned an impact on my constitutional course, and it's about a ruling handed by the High Court of Australia regarding courts-martial. To understand the impact you'll have to follow along with some pretty unusual constitutional reasoning. A principle in common law countries is the separation of powers, or at least that non-judicial bodies cannot exercise judicial powers. An example would be a Minister passing judgement and imposing a punishment after deciding a legal question. There are some exceptions to this, a historical one being Parliament's power to act as a court, a privilege the courts have been willing to let Parliament keep. In order to preserve the independence of the judiciary, the courts in Australia (and I imagine elsewhere like Canada, the US, the UK and NZ) have said that only courts can decide legal questions and impose punishment, and judges must be independent. Courts-martial have proven an anomaly in this area as judges are generally military staff not necessarily independent as other judges (removal only by certain procedures, independence from influence, etc.). Essentially, courts-martial are executive bodies exercising judicial power which would normally be prohibited except the courts have gotten around this by saying that the purpose of military courts is discipline, not justice, so the they can continue in this unusual way. Now we come to the fun part.

About 2 years ago, the Australian government decided to reform the military justice system to make it more like a Chapter 3 court; Chapter 3 of the Australian Constitution deals with the judiciary and has been used to establish judicial independence. This new system was challenged in court and a few days ago the High Court ruled that the government had ponced it up and that the tribunals were improperly constituted. I haven't read the judgement, but essentially, the government had not given the judges sufficient freedom. I think the High Court is saying that on this issue there can be no middle ground, either you give them full judicial independence or you stick to the old system. This now means that all decisions of the past 2 years have to be reviewed and the government has gone back to the old system while it thinks up what to do next. On a personal note, last semester I asked a professor about this very issue and why the government, in order to avoid the whole justice/discipline issue, which really is bizarre, why not create something like the Military Division of the Federal Court. The professor replied that would be acceptable as long as judicial independence was maintained. I then asked had the current system been challenged and he replied no. I like to think that I was ahead of the game that day.

One more thing, I've added pictures from my trip to Adelaide on my previous post.