Governments create and commission copyright protected material as part of their core administrative functions and they sometimes compete with the private sector as developers of commercially valuable assets. Governments also use under licence copyright protected material owned and created by others. A wide range of copyright material is also submitted to State and federal governments when individuals and corporations comply with legal obligations or conduct business with government agencies. That material submitted to governments, and the information it contains, can have value that extends beyond the initial transaction. Governments can add value by compiling and processing the information and then charge the public for access. Material submitted to government is also an important source of information about how governments function. When the principles of open government and transparency are discussed, the primary focus is usually upon access to information recorded in documents created within government agencies. However, it is often necessary to extend access to documents received by agencies. Copyright in that material will be privately owned and that can conflict with public access.

The adequacy of the legal protection given to fundamental rights and freedoms is a topic of concern in both Australia and Britain, two jurisdictions which share a common legal heritage. Both have witnessed extensive debates in recent times about the desirability or otherwise of a Bill of Rights designed to protect human rights.

It cannot be that Legislatures, being rational, seek to break down the fences they have erected around individual tribunals and let them roam at large by the simple expedient of a privative clause. The clause must be read in the context of the statute. It cannot be intended to transform tribunals into judicial libertines.

The decision of the House of Lords in Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission was hailed as a landmark, permitting almost unlimited judicial review into the activities of administrative bodies and inferior courts. De Smith commented

Yet the decisions which have followed Anisminic even in England have revealed that the case has contributed little certainty to an area in which apparently irreconcilable decisions proliferate.

There is agreement that the tax law is very complex and needs improvement. At that level of generality it is not easy to attract an argument. However once one cuts below that layer of broad agreement there has not been the same level of understanding or concord on what can be done to put things right.It is good to see positive signs that these issues deserve serious public debate so that we can reach common ground on what is achievable by the Tax Law Improvement Project.

The author of this article argues that whilst a desire for uniformity and certainty in taxation law is both desirable and necessary, it should not and cannot be achieved simply by extrapolating general property and trust concepts and authorities into taxation law. Conversely taxation authorities cannot mechanically be cited as supporting property and trust principles. The result of simple extrapolation not only inhibits effective judicial response to tax avoidance by by-passing important policy considerations but also creates uncertainty by obscuring the real reason for the decision.

This article examines the Foreign Antitrust Judgments (Restriction of Enforcement) Act 1979 (Cth) (“the 1979 Act“). It was the second legislative response of the Australian Government to steps taken by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation (“Westinghouse“) in its international uranium cartel antitrust suit in the United States District Court in Chicago. That suit and other legislation attributable to the uranium cartel which operated between 1972 and 1975 proceeded for more than four years and, until a recent spate of settlements mentioned later in the article, had been expected to continue well into the 1980s. At the outset it is necessary to say something of the events which provoked the District Court suit and related litigation.

In September 1975 Westinghouse announced in the United States that it was unable to fulfil its contractual obligations for the supply of uranium oxide (U3O2). Westinghouse's primary involvement in the nuclear energy industry is as a manufacturer of nuclear power plants (“reactors“) and not as a uranium miner. In the late 1960s reactor sales soared and Westinghouse offered electric utilities low price reactor fuel over long terms as an inducement to capture reactor sales.

Strategic litigation is a form of legal mobilization, where actors bring cases before judges not only to win in court, but also to pursue broader political, social or economic ends. Various actors can use the law strategically – big corporations, specialized non-governmental organizations or individual academics. The ends can range from resisting market regulation or a political advocacy campaign to simply “testing the law”. The results of strategic litigation maintain or change power relations in society, economy or politics.

This article provides an analytical framework for the Special Issue on Strategic Litigation in EU Law. This framework can be used to study strategic litigation mobilizing EU law. A contextual and normatively open definition of strategic litigation, recognizes that strategic litigation as a practice operates within specific social, institutional, and economic contexts while accommodating a spectrum of agendas from progressive to conservative. The framework encompasses three dimensions: the actors involved, the unique legal structures of EU law, and its effects—both in terms of strictly legal outcomes and of broader socio-political consequences. Ultimately, this framework aims to illuminate the dynamics of (dis)empowerment characterizing strategic litigation, paving the way for a comprehensive exploration of its implications within the EU legal landscape.

In 1994, the Commonwealth Parliament passed an amendment to the Immigration (Guardianship of Children) Act 1946 (Cth) (the ‘Immigration (GOC) Act’), which provided that the Minister is guardian of ‘every non-citizen child who arrives in Australia’. Although the Immigration (GOC) Act was originally enacted with respect to children who entered Australia under assisted migration or re-settlement schemes, the Act and the amendments introduced by the Immigration (Guardianship of Children) Amendment Act 1994 (Cth) have been interpreted to include unaccompanied children who come to Australia as asylum-seekers. Unaccompanied children commonly apply for protection visas and bring review applications and appeals in the Refugee Review Tribunal (‘the Tribunal’) and the courts. The Minister is the decision-maker, respondent in review proceedings, and a party in appeals; and is also the children's legal guardian. This gives rise to actual and perceived conflict between the Minister's duties as guardian and as a decision-maker or party to review and appeal proceedings.

Over the last three years the Commonwealth has enacted four statutes with the aim of overcoming some of the deficiencies which exist at common law in the reviewing of administrative action. These are the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (Cth), the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Amendment Act 1977 (Cth), the Ombudsman Act 1976 (Cth) and the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth). This article examines in detail the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth) in order to determine whether the common law rights and remedies have been improved.

This special edition of the Federal Law Review, in the 50th Anniversary year of the Australian National University, contains a study of recent developments in administrative law. The conference at which these papers were presented was part of the first Public Law Weekend hosted by the Centre for International and Public Law in the Law Faculty, and held on 30-31 August 1996. Speakers included eminent administrative law academics from the Australian National University, the University of Sydney and the University of Western Australia, together with legal practitioners and prominent figures from State and Commonwealth public administration. The conference had been preceded by a half-day seminar to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Report of the Commonwealth Administrative Review Committee (the “Kerr Committee”), one of the foundation documents setting out the blueprint for Commonwealth administrative law.

Speakers at the Public Law Weekend were asked to identify significant developments over the range of government activities which are subject to administrative law. The four sessions, therefore, covered decisions by the newer investigative and inquisitorial bodies; by courts exercising judicial review; by the now firmly entrenched, but disparate, family of tribunals; and, finally, by those bodies creating the jurisprudence relating to access to government information.

Political controversies in New South Wales and Canada recently have focused public attention on the constitutional practice of proroguing parliament. They have also shone a light on two lingering areas of uncertainty that surround its operation under the Commonwealth Constitution. This article seeks to clarify these two muddy areas of the law concerning prorogation. The first is the effect of prorogation on the Senate and its committees. Since Federation, the Senate has purported to authorise its committees to continue to function notwithstanding a prorogation of the Parliament. However, it is argued that this practice is unsupported by the provisions of the Constitution and the Senate has no such power. Second, the article examines the operation of the conventions that constrain the Governor-General's power to prorogue. Prorogation generally is exercised on the advice of the Prime Minister. However, this article contends that where a Prime Minister seeks to prorogue Parliament to avoid a vote of no confidence, the Governor-General will have a discretion to reject the advice. It may also be open to the Governor-General to reject an advice to prorogue where the purpose is to avoid scrutiny of a fundamental constitutional illegality. In Australia, the uncertainties that surround prorogation, coupled with the now precarious political landscape in Canberra, create the very real possibility of a prorogation crisis at the Commonwealth level. This article provides a response to these uncertainties. In doing so it offers a solution to how a prorogation crisis can be resolved, whilst maintaining the fine balance of power in our constitutional system.

The author first discusses the statutory framework which has led to the divided jurisdiction over matrimonial property in Australia. This is followed by an examination of the problems that this division creates, such as delay in settling property disputes, jurisdictional conflict when one spouse unilaterally seeks a “State” remedy, and evasion of the intention behind the legislation to divide matrimonial property equitably between the parties. Some of the mechanisms like gifting and trust arrangements by which a spouse may rearrange his affairs to insulate himself from the jurisdictional reach of the Family Court are examined. The limitations of the injunction power under s. 114 of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) are exposed and following this the author speculates about the scope of s. 85 of the Act which attempts to empower the Court to set aside transactions designed to avoid the provisions of the Act. He concludes that the powers of the Family Court are uncertain and limited and that the only real solution would lie in a reference of power in this area to the Commonwealth by the States.

This article provides insight into the emerging global-local and public-private nature of professional regulation. Specifically, it reports on recent cross-border interaction to modify professional regulation involving the recognition of qualifications, rights of practice and discipline and ethics. That interaction reveals how – loosely - the regulation of legal competence and conduct has been drawn into a web of global governance. A particular interest is the prominent role that Australian practitioners and officials have played in both multilateral and bilateral relations.

In characterising the way governance of regulation has gone global, Picciotto describes it as a networked field. The governance of regulation has spilled over national borders, yet it has not moved cleanly upwards into a regime of binding public international law. Global governance lacks a clear regulatory hierarchy. Regulatory relations extend out horizontally as well as vertically and they blur the boundaries between public and private regulators.

Following the High Court's decision in the Election Advertising case, Toohey J's extra-eurial speech at a 1992 conference on constitutional law has inspired speculation as to the existence of an implied “Bill of Rights” in the Constitution. As reported in the Australian Financial Review, Toohey J's thesis avoided any direct challenge to the doctrine of Parliamentary supremacy by, “resorting to the Constitution — albeit implications arising from the Constitution as opposed to the written text — to legitimise judicial scrutiny of legislation”.

By examining the history of the Ahvāz pipe mill in the 1960s and 1970s, this article investigates the manner in which competing understandings of Iran's modernizing trajectory among Pahlavi officials were bound up with the material aspects of steel, such as weight, volume, and form. The mill was built to provide pipe for the First Iran Gas Trunkline, a sprawling system intended to gather, refine, and transport natural gas to Iranian cities and the Soviet Caucasus. Officials overseeing the project debated whether the mill's design should prioritize serving the pipeline project or, more ambitiously, establish a new pipe rolling industry able to serve domestic and regional markets. Argued in this article is the significance of attending to infrastructure and materiality in understanding Iran's twentieth-century history of developmentalism.