Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables and figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- I Contemporary Theories of Australian Politics
- Part II Politics in Everyday Australian Life
- Part III Elections
- Part IV Participation and Representation
- Part V Inside the Australian State
- Introduction to Part V
- 19 Parliament
- 20 Prime ministerial government in Australia
- 21 Politicisation and the executive
- 22 Delivering public policy
- 23 The courts
- 24 Federalism
- Part VI Contemporary Public Controversies
- Glossary
- References
- Index
- References
23 - The courts
from Part V - Inside the Australian State
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables and figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- I Contemporary Theories of Australian Politics
- Part II Politics in Everyday Australian Life
- Part III Elections
- Part IV Participation and Representation
- Part V Inside the Australian State
- Introduction to Part V
- 19 Parliament
- 20 Prime ministerial government in Australia
- 21 Politicisation and the executive
- 22 Delivering public policy
- 23 The courts
- 24 Federalism
- Part VI Contemporary Public Controversies
- Glossary
- References
- Index
- References
Summary
Australian courts – and the High Court in particular – are another political institution (Chapter 2) that plays an important role in Australian politics. Given the gender and status of judges, the courts often have been sites for the reproduction of social structures that produce social inequality in Australia (see Chapter 4). The fact that judges are neither elected nor answer to an elected body means that the courts play a curious role in any democracy (Chapter 1). At the same time, judges often uphold democratic rights, sometimes against elected parliaments that want to restrict them. These apparent paradoxes make the behaviour of judges an appropriate focus of study for behaviouralist political science (Chapter 3). The legal system is also replete with discourses on ‘rights’ and other terms, which produce and reproduce subject positions that are part of governance in Australia (Chapter 5). Rights discourse is, of course, international, reminding us that the politics of courts is simultaneously domestic and international (see Chapter 6).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Contemporary Politics in AustraliaTheories, Practices and Issues, pp. 260 - 270Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012
References
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