There has recently been a minor research and publishing boom in the field of refusals of royal assent to Bills in Australia. When in the throes of finalising my own contribution to this outburst of scholarship, I discovered that the figurehead German Federal President had just refused his assent to two government Bills passed by the Bundestag (the lower house of Parliament). In the two cases, which occurred in October and December 2006, the Federal President acted because he thought the proposed statute unconstitutional. Further research revealed that these were the seventh and eighth refusals of assent by a Federal President against the government's wishes since the foundation of the Federal Republic in 1949. As a result, there is a long-running academic debate in Germany about the circumstances in which the figurehead Federal President may refuse assent. Some scholars even permit the Federal President to assess every proposed law to ensure that it complies with the constitutional charter of rights, while others take a more restrictive view and confine his task to errors of parliamentary procedure and/or restrictions on law-making power other than those to be found in the charter of rights.

Agitation for parenting reform has become a prominent feature of family law policy debates in recent years. Many countries, such as England and Canada, have proceeded cautiously in response to such demands. Australia, on the other hand, opted for a bolder step and enacted a suite of shared parenting amendments in 2006, including a presumption of ‘equal shared parental responsibility'. The Shared Parental Responsibility Act was designed to facilitate substantial, if not equal, involvement by both parents in children's lives following separation, provided this is safe. While conversations about the implications of this move continue to take place, the first empirical evidence of its impact on post-separation parenting patterns has now been published. Its data suggest the reforms have been successful in producing an increase in ‘substantially shared care arrangements’ since the legislation came into force. At the same time, however, the research indicates that a significant number of these arrangements are characterised by intense parental conflict, and that shared care of children is a key variable affecting poor emotional outcomes for children.

On 10 April 2005 Justice Bradley Selway died. He was 50. For those who knew and worked with Brad, as he was universally known, this was crushing news. Like many I came across Brad through a shared interest in public law, an area in which he excelled, and like many a professional interaction it turned into a cherished friendship.

My first meeting with Brad was when he agreed to chair a continuing legal education seminar in Adelaide on section 90 of the Constitution. As an inexperienced academic I was nervous and clearly portrayed that lack of confidence. He, as was his way, calmed the situation by reminding all that he should be the nervous one having just lost the States $5 billion with the High Court’s decision in Ha v New South Wales.

Year by eventful year, a century has passed since the birth of Edward Aloysius McTiernan on 16 February 1892 at Glen Innes, New South Wales. The second of two children of Patrick McTiernan, police constable, and Isabella McTiernan (nee Diamond) came into a world on the brink of great political and legal changes. His life virtually spanned the whole history to date of the Commonwealth of Australia. It saw mighty wars, great scientific and social changes and the apogee and fall of the British Empire. Instructive it is to reflect upon the world he entered and the controversies which were agitating Australia and the mother country at a time young Edward was born.

A year before his birth, an event was to take place which affected the course of his life. In 1890, provision was first made for the payment of members of Parliament elected at the next general election in the colony of New South Wales.

Paleoproterozoic granitoids of the lesser Himalayan belt are keys to understanding the evolution of the northern Indian continental margin and its position in the Columbia supercontinent assembly. We present whole-rock chemistry and zircon U-Pb geochronological data for Gwaldam Biotite Granite (GBGr) from the Baijnath Klippe (BK) in Kumaun Himalaya to elucidate their petrogenesis and geodynamic implications. Granites are characterized by ferroan, weakly peraluminous nature with high SiO2 and K2O contents, enrichment in LILE (Rb, Th, K and Pb), and depletion in Ba, Nb, P, Hf and Ti. Granites show enrichment in light rare earth element relative to heavy rare earth elements and pronounced negative Eu anomalies. Such chemistry suggests typical A-type granite with high Y/Nb >2 values that characterize it as A2-type granite. Zircon U-Pb ages for the granite yield upper intercept at 1900 ± 3 Ma (core) and 1854 ± 2 Ma (rim). Integrating the chemical and geochronological data, we propose a two-stage evolution model for the area. In the GBGr, the ∼1900 Ma date of zircon core is likely the date of crystallization of the melts presumably formed during the first extensional stage at uppermost mantle – lower crust levels caused by slab break-off/rollback, which followed a post-collisional setting. The second incipient rifting stage produced melt that entrained the zircon cores (∼1900 Ma) during its ascendance and crystallized as the GBGr at ∼1854 Ma when the zircon rims crystallized. It is further proposed that the Paleoproterozoic Northern Indian continental margin later underwent at least two crustal extensions during the Columbia supercontinent agglomeration.

When an employee sexually harasses a fellow employee away from the workplace or outside work hours, such as at a bar or a private party, difficult questions arise as to whether the employer should be held vicariously liable. Conversely, difficult questions arise as to the extent to which an employer might legitimately seek to supervise or regulate the conduct of its employees outside of work.

This article traces the key decisions that have considered this issue of sexual harassment away from the workplace or outside normal work hours (for convenience, I have referred to such conduct as ‘off-duty sexual harassment’).

As the discussion in Part Two illustrates, the leading decisions in the Australian federal jurisdiction considering the scope of vicarious liability for off-duty sexual harassment have taken a consistently broad approach to the requisite nexus with the employment. This culminated in the watershed decision of the Federal Magistrates Court last year in Lee v Smith, where an employer was held vicariously liable when an employee raped a fellow employee at a private residence following a social dinner party.

The origin of the Commonwealth's Bills of Exchange Act 1909 is a guarantee of its efficiency. By the 1870's the merchants of the United Kingdom had worked out for themselves, with the help (and occasionally subject to the hindrance) of the courts and Parliament, a remarkably effective system of conducting commercial transactions by means of bills of exchange, cheques and promissory notes.

Sir Garfield Barwick prepared this article some considerable time ago. It was in the hands of the publishers well before Sir Owen Dixon's retirement as Chief Justice of the High Court. The Review, including the article, was in course of printing when Sir Garfield's appointment as Chief Justice was announced on 23 April, 1964.

“The Official Secrets Act stiffens the spine of the secretive bureaucrat and softens the vertebrae of the press”1

Andrew Fraser has made a valuable contribution to the debate over the role of republicanism in Australia. He has raised an important, and generally ignored, question: would Keating's model for an Australian republic achieve a republican republic? A corollary of this is a further question: is it in any event desirable that an Australian republic be based upon the strong republicanism favoured by Fraser? On the former question, I would agree with Fraser that Keating's model would not imbue the Australian nation with Fraser's version of republicanism and that, if Fraser's version of republicanism were to be accepted, Australia would remain an unrepublican republic. However, as to the latter question, we would disagree. Fundamentally, I do not see Fraser's version of strong republicanism as being viable.

Fraser has significantly broadened the discussion of republicanism and has widened perceptions of what the ideology, for want of a better word, might encompass. However, while much of his criticism of my article, “A Republicanism Tradition for Australia?”, is explicable on the basis that he and I obviously share very different starting-points and approaches, I feel that he has misconstrued my argument in some respects.

This Article inquires into the aftermath of judgments by the CJEU under the preliminary ruling procedure under article 267 TFEU in cases of strategic litigation. As the principal objective of strategic litigants is to effectively achieve broader societal, political, economic, or legal change, the afterlife of a judgment is crucial for them. While excellent scholarship exists on strategic litigation in EU law, much remains unclear on what happens to a case after the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has given its judgment. Does the referring court and other national courts faithfully comply with the judgment of the CJEU? Do governments implement the ruling? This Article takes the decision of the CJEU in Landespolizeidirektion Steiermark, which concerns the reintroduction of internal border controls, as case study to inquire into the different factors that affect the implementation of a preliminary ruling that is the outcome of strategic litigation. The main argument in this Article is that the implementation of preliminary rulings is determined by the interplay between three different factors: The role of strategic litigants to initiate follow-up litigation, the receptivity of national courts to comply with a preliminary ruling, and the European Commission’s willingness to enforce a preliminary ruling.

The many problems relating to Commonwealth power to make laws for a Territory have arisen because the power itself was a constitutional afterthought. The late Professor Ross Anderson described the Commonwealth of Australia as ‘the child of as hard-headed a mariage de convenance as was ever arranged in the salons of France ’. The marriage was, however, between the self-governing colonies which later became the States. Those who arranged the marriage were concerned primarily with the health and prosperity of the parties to, and the issue of, the union. Whether they were in favour of granting large powers to the Commonwealth or were staunch believers in ‘State Rights’ or whether they were for or against Federation, the chief issue was whether and to what extent each of the colonies should voluntarily reduce its own governmental power by giving some of it to a new self-governing colony which would in area and population embrace all the existing colonies.

The decision of the High Court in Capital T.V. and Appliances Pty Ltd v. Falconer makes a further contribution to the step by step effort of the Court to develop a coherent doctrine with respect to the place of the Commonwealth Territories in the federal system. It goes some way towards answering the questions that arise with respect to the jurisdiction that may be exercised by territorial courts on the one hand, and on the other hand, the jurisdiction that may be exercised by federal courts, and State courts invested with federal jurisdiction, in respect of matters having a relationship with a Territory.

The matters decided were simply that the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory is not a federal court, but is a territorial court established by virtue of the powers of the Parliament under section 122 of the Constitution, nor is it a court exercising federal jurisdiction. The Court did not find it necessary to decide whether the tenure of office of the judges of the Supreme Court met the requirements of section 72 of the Constitution with respect to federal courts. It held that, even assuming that those requirements were met, the Supreme Court was not a federal court. This conclusion was based on the intention of Parliament, as appearing from the words used to create the Court and the scope of the jurisdiction conferred on it. Further, it was held that the only courts “exercising federal jurisdiction”, apart from federal courts, are State courts invested with federal jurisdiction.

The crucial problem arises when we ask, not what role mediation should play: in creating law, but how far and in what respects should it enter into the administration of laws.

Leon Fuller, Carter Professional General Jurisprudence, Harvard University.

Over the next generation, I predict that society's greatest opportunities will live in tapping human inclinations towards collaboration and compromise rather tha stirring our proclivities for competition and rivalry.

Dr Derek Bok, President, Harvart University, 1982 Cardozo Lecture.

Let me start on a note of consensus, if not reconciliation. I am certain that we all agree that there would be no one else as well equipped to give the opening paper for this seminar as is Lindsay Curtis. He is well equipped by direct experience, by close knowledge, by personal commitment, and at the same time not least by an ability to stand back from the unfolding of a complicated bit of business and assess what has been going on. His paper is the ideal source of ideas, but in speaking to it I will be able to pursue only one or two.

As this is a seminar arranged by the Law School, it would only be appropriate to start with a text from WS Gilbert. In Act One of that understandably neglected work, “Utopia Limited”, there enters a character named Tarara who explains his constitutional function thus: