[3.1] The constitutional framework of legislation, federal and state, is relevant to statutory interpretation in various ways. At its most general level, the framework identifies the source of interpretative law for legislation. Further, three fundamental constitutional concepts – the separation of powers, the rule of law and parliamentary supremacy – both influence and provide a foundation for statutory interpretation law. Although these concepts are complex, and the subject of considerable discourse in constitutional law, it is important to understand their basic characteristics as a backdrop to the more detailed examination of statutory interpretation law that follows in this book.

The best option for defending the use of the legislative perspective is a hybrid approach that includes both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist commitments. Given that the theory in its original theistic form combined nonconsequentialist religious commitments with weak consequentialist reasoning, a successful adaptation of the legislative perspective to appeal to contemporary secular audiences will need to address both types of moral commitments. The type of legislative perspective under consideration is one that is moderate in its strength, realistic, at least weakly consequentialist, and applies to counterfactual cases where one is not literally legislating. The six moral commitments that one must endorse in order to use the legislative perspective in the specified sense are plausible, but they require a hybrid approach that is neither solely consequentialist nor exclusively nonconsequentialist. The nonconsequentialist reasons that justify the shift to the legislative perspective are stronger in cases where people are making decisions in political contexts, even if those contexts are not legislative contexts.

The essentially open-textured quality of political discourse that an equivocal (equi-vocal) norm suggests does not simply allow for many voices to be heard – it mandates it.Likewise, governance benefits from the pragmatism inherent in a norm that eschews absolutes and formulaic solutions in favor of bespoke designs, tailormade for environmental problems that vary in character by location and time.The forces of globalization make legislative oversight of administrative action difficult, if not impossible, by multiplying accountability challenges across multiple governance levels and processes.Using existing administrative competencies, a deliberative model of transnational democratic accountability can build on the functions that intergovernmental organizations already perform tolerably well without relying on new legislative inputs or continuous monitoring by elected officials.Two features of democratic deliberation – its tendency to reduce moral disputes and to promote consensus – can reduce the costs of organization maintenance in stakeholder communities that offer non-legislative alternatives for administrative oversight.The EU is a pioneer of transnational democratic oversight and administrative accountability, and its incremental and trial and error innovations, as inadequate as they still are, offer lessons for the problem of accountability in the absence of effective legislative authority.

The public, official life of Athens took place mostly in the central square, known as the Agora, described by ancient authors, especially Pausanias, and excavated by the American School of Classical Studies. This chapter explores the buildings that housed the executive (Royal Stoa), legislative (Bouleuterion), and judiciary (law courts, or diskasteria) branches of the Athenian democracy.

Why is Australia able to deal with social unrest and not decline into a society where chaos, violence and deep corruption are constant? This chapter is about why and how Australia is a country in which there is order, security and safety. Beneath our relatively peaceful lives in Australia, there exist key elements that create this ‘peacefulness’. Australia’s institutions — Parliaments and courts — provide a way for people to express unhappiness and dissatisfaction; to improve laws and provide a mechanism to independently judge the laws.