Wednesday, July 28, 2004

So Your Constitution Is Outdated

Well then you're a silly bugger, ain't'cha? The thing about a constitution is that it needs to be rather general and vague, yet command the ultimate authority. In class, there's some suggestions that the Australian constitution is old (certainly, 103 years is a long time), and needs to be updated to meet today's needs, and codify the unwritten conventions that were so recklessly ignored in the 1975 constitutional crisis. Appalling state of events it was, but still possible under the constitution which is why it was not changed to prevent the same thing happening again, but rather parliament created a few acts that limited the possibility of a recurrence.

you can't codify conventions, because they evolve and change - and situations can arise that were not planned for, and then what are you stuck with? A constitutional impossibility. Say, as I daydream about everyday, that the greens in our nation gathered enough seats under their banner that they held the balance of power in the house of reps and the senate - and they did not side with one party or another to give that party full governing control of the parliament- now if the current conventions were codified, the prime minister would change whenever the greens decided to swing one way or the other on any given issue, and such uncertainty would cause many problems.

By being general, it allows the possibility for this or any other scenario to adapt to the situation. You can't consider every possibility - who would've thought in 1901 that the aborigines would be allowed to vote, or claim ownership of land through native title? And by codifying evolving conventions, they die and gradually become outdated. If that means that every once in a while we have a ruckus like in 1975, well it has to happen, no system is perfect.

as much as i loathe the saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" seems to make sense - it works well enough, and if you muck with it, things just might end up worse... who knows? would you take the chance? do you feel lucky, punk?
posted by Keegan at 12:20 pm

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