The preliminary reference procedure is a crucial tool for EU law enforcement. Yet, its usage varies greatly across the Member States. This paper deals with a notable case in which EU justice has not been mobilized: Greece. Until 2023, Greek judges had not made any preliminary references in the migration and asylum fields, despite significant migrant flows. This study investigates why Greece, with its critical migration challenges, became a zero-reference case.

Drawing on empirical and doctrinal research, this paper tests two main hypotheses. The first hypothesis, derived from the “judicial empowerment thesis,” suggests that Greek judges may have been hesitant to refer cases due to political or institutional factors. The second hypothesis, based on scholarship highlighting the role of lawyers and civil society in promoting EU litigation, predicts that the absence of references reflects a lack of activist lawyers, skills, or resources.

The findings challenge common assumptions, revealing that Greek judges are not inherently reluctant to refer cases. Instead, obstacles to access to justice and civil society’s attitudes help understand the absence of references. Going beyond judges, this paper explores how perceptions among migrant supporters, their legal consciousness, and traditional modes of action contribute to the lack of pressure for preliminary references.

This research contributes to understanding the complexities surrounding judicial dialogue and enforcement of EU law. It offers insights into how the interplay of institutional, legal, and social factors shapes legal mobilization and strategic litigation.

When Mr Cyril Worthing fell and suffered InjUrieS during his inspection of building work at the Richmond Air Force Base there was not only an alleged gap in the scaffolding but also a very significant gap in the law. For when he sued the defendant contractors for damages for breach of alleged statutory duty under the Scaffolding and Lifts Act, 1912-1965 of New South Wales, the High Court held in Worthing v. Rowell and Muston Pty Ltd and Others that the State scaffolding regulations, made after the Commonwealth's acquisition, did not apply in “places acquired by the Commonwealth for public purposes” within the meaning of section 52(i.) of the Constitution.

Section 52(i.) of the Constitution provides as follows:

52. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have exclusive power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to—

(i) The seat of government of the Commonwealth, and all places acquired by the Commonwealth for public purposes.

One is not often called upon to review for a law journal a book which is not written either by a lawyer or specifically for a lawyer. Mr Stanley Brogden's Australia's Two-Airline Policy is such a book and its paper jacket states that the book is of particular interest for students of economics, public administration, business administration, political science and for general readers and libraries. Since, however, the Melbourne University Press is noted for its publication of serious and scholarly works, and further, because the two-airline policy cannot properly be understood without an adequate grasp of the legal and constitutional framework in which it operates, it seems quite proper to make an assessment of Mr Brogden's work. Mr Brogden is a very experienced aviation writer as the book will quickly demonstrate. It is the purpose of this review not only to assess the book on its merits but also to supplement the account of the two-airline policy by a closer examination of legal issues and some observations on the future implications of the policy.

The two investigative techniques introduced by the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974 are the environmental impact statement and the public inquiry. The policy underlying the use of environmental impact statements was not fully achieved until administrative procedures were created under the Act in 1975. It is probably too early to assess the effectiveness of these procedures. This article is limited therefore to considering their legal nature and possible effect. Two principles emerge from this exercise: the procedures are almost entirely discretionary in nature and the policy of reducing judicial involvement to a minimum is likely to succeed. Protection of the environment is thus a matter for political decision.

In maintaining the distinction between capital and income first instituted by legislation nearly two centuries ago, the courts have occasionally faced intractable problems where pragmatism has necessarily triumphed over analysis. Sir Owen Dixon's famous Sun Newspapers test for distinguishing between revenue and capital outgoings is one example, where in reality a number of unweighted considerations were suggested, with but vague illustrations for their application. The proper manner of apportioning outgoings, and the role of purpose and intention, are others. Yet a fourth, and the subject of this paper is the characterisation of receipts derived from the sale or loss of intangible rights.

In the past few years, the subject of administrative law remedies has been studied intensively in many common law jurisdictions. In this article, David Mullan examines the various reforms and proposals for reform and concludes that none is completely satisfactory and indeed that some compound previous problems and create new ones as well Nevertheless, he sees some merit in the New South Wales and Nova Scotia solutions which emerged as part of a general reform of the civil procedure rules and not as a separate statutory enactment.

Let $(W,S)$ be a Coxeter system, and write $S=\{s_i:i\in I\}$, where I is a finite index set. Fix a nonempty convex subset $\mathscr {L}$ of W. If W is of type A, then $\mathscr {L}$ is the set of linear extensions of a poset, and there are important Bender–Knuth involutions $\mathrm {BK}_i\colon \mathscr {L}\to \mathscr {L}$ indexed by elements of I. For arbitrary W and for each $i\in I$, we introduce an operator $\tau _i\colon W\to W$ (depending on $\mathscr {L}$) that we call a noninvertible Bender–Knuth toggle; this operator restricts to an involution on $\mathscr {L}$ that coincides with $\mathrm {BK}_i$ in type A. Given a Coxeter element $c=s_{i_n}\cdots s_{i_1}$, we consider the operator $\mathrm {Pro}_c=\tau _{i_n}\cdots \tau _{i_1}$. We say W is futuristic if for every nonempty finite convex set $\mathscr {L}$, every Coxeter element c and every $u\in W$, there exists an integer $K\geq 0$ such that $\mathrm {Pro}_c^K(u)\in \mathscr {L}$. We prove that finite Coxeter groups, right-angled Coxeter groups, rank-3 Coxeter groups, affine Coxeter groups of types $\widetilde A$ and $\widetilde C$, and Coxeter groups whose Coxeter graphs are complete are all futuristic. When W is finite, we actually prove that if $s_{i_N}\cdots s_{i_1}$ is a reduced expression for the long element of W, then $\tau _{i_N}\cdots \tau _{i_1}(W)=\mathscr {L}$; this allows us to determine the smallest integer $\mathrm {M}(c)$ such that $\mathrm {Pro}_c^{{\mathrm {M}}(c)}(W)=\mathscr {L}$ for all $\mathscr {L}$. We also exhibit infinitely many non-futuristic Coxeter groups, including all irreducible affine Coxeter groups that are not of type $\widetilde A$, $\widetilde C$, or $\widetilde G_2$.

Let (K, v) be a valued field and $\phi\in K[x]$ be any key polynomial for a residue-transcendental extension w of v to K(x). In this article, using the ϕ-Newton polygon of a polynomial $f\in K[x]$ (with respect to w), we give a lower bound for the degree of an irreducible factor of f. This generalizes the result given in Jakhar and Srinivas (On the irreducible factors of a polynomial II, J. Algebra 556 (2020), 649–655).

It is often said that the great innovation of America's eighteenth century constitution-makers was not their acceptance of the ideal of constitutionalism but their insistence that legal constraints on government be subject to alteration, breaking free front the hold of divine law and natural right theories. To be sure, the notion of constitutionalism necessarily entails that there be some distinction between how ordinary legal change is effected and how a constitution is changed. A constitution binds and guides ordinary law-making by virtue of itself not being subject to those processes.

The common law has had considerable difficulty in identifying a principle or principles by which to explain the role of the courts in reviewing administrative action. In this article it is argued that that principle is necessarily a constitutional principle and that the starting point for its analysis in Australian law is the Commonwealth Constitution. It is then argued that the Commonwealth Constitution, and in particular the separation of judicial power within it, necessarily limits the extent of permissible judicial review. In particular, the separation of judicial power justifies and requires the distinction between jurisdictional and non-jurisdictional errors and the distinction between invalidity and merit review in Australian administrative law. This constitutional basis for judicial review, combined with the discipline of a written Constitution, also explains why recent developments in English and New Zealand common law in relation to judicial review are not appropriate or applicable to Australia.

The opening words of s 3(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (“FOI Act”) state that the object of the Act is “to extend as far as possible the right of the Australian community to access to information in the possession of the Government of the Commonwealth”. Paragraphs (a) and (b) of s 3(1) indicate that this object is to be achieved in two main ways, that stated in s 3(1)(b) being:

[B]y creating a general right of access to information in documentary form in the possession of Ministers, departments and public authorities, limited only by exceptions and exemptions necessary for the protection of essential public interests and the private and business affairs of persons in respect of whom information is collected and held by departments and public authorities.

The new administrative law in Australia dates from the implementation, over a period of more than a decade, of the substance of the proposals advanced by the Kerr Committee and its successors in the early 1970s. The now familiar legislation swept away many of the procedural obscurities associated with the prerogative writs, codified the general principles governing judicial review of administrative action and provided for independent merits review of administrative decisions. These reforms paved the way for the emergence of what commentators have described as a “distinctively Australian jurisprudence in public law”. It is hardly necessary to say that Sir Anthony Mason played a pivotal role in the development of the distinctive jurisprudence, both through his membership of the Kerr Committee and his judgments in the leading administrative law cases of the 1980s and 1990s.