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In your opinon, should the elected parliament be the sole law-makers in Australia?

Why should the elected parliament be the sole law-makers in Australia?

Should other bodies such as the executive (government) and the judicial body (courts) make laws?

If yes, why should these bodies make laws that against the theory of separation of powers popularised by Montesquieu 1748?

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Hmmm, this is a good recall of my Intro to Law unit @ uni.....

No, the elected parliament should NOT be the sole makers of law in the Australian legal system. In a very concise nutshell......

There are a number of reasons for this.

Firstly, in relation to the seperation of powers.

The seperation of powers is necessary to insure the existance of an equal and democratic society, hence, to place 'absolute power' in the hands of politicians (of all people!) would mostly result in laws being passed, against the will of the general public, leading to corruption, misrepresentation, misfeasence of public office etc.....

It is necessary for more than one of the executive bodies to be involved in the law-making process, more importantly, the judiciary. The judiciary provide legal insight into problems and their knowledge of the law, should allow them to come to a sound decision in relation to public legal matters.

I suppose, in the end, the saying hold true that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" thus to avoid such consequences, it is necessary to observe a general 'spread' in power, in order to maintain a system of law that is both efficient and effective. If you're writing some sort of an essay, I'd elaborate on the aforementioned concepts......

Hope that helps........man I'm so bored, had nothing better to do at 12.15am on a Wednesday night (thursday morning)

PS: Montesquieu, although an ideallist, had very admirable intentions with his thoughts on governance.

His theory of separation is a good one, in that it has a supposed 'fail safe' for any one branch of government becoming too powerful and, in his 'trias politica' sence - judge, jury and executioner... if you remove these checks and balances (his term) - then problems arise. However, allowing one arm of government to create laws carte blanche also causes problems - so the other branches cannot be completely removed from the process.

It's a fine line.

The extension to his theory is that the 4th branch is the press. Primarily as a 'who polices the police' style watchdog. Anyone who says the press isn't involved in the legal process in a democratic society is certainly not cynical enough ;)

That said - i'm sure the Baron wouldn't be too impresed with the current state of constitution in a number of governments which based upon his theories. Good luck :P

Some info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers

Baron Montesquieu:

montesquieu_1.jpg

* and yes, I picked the silliest picture I could find :D

Time for me to go home...

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