The Constitution of a Federal Commonwealth
The Making and Meaning of the Australian Constitution

This book describes how ideas about federalism influenced those who drafted the Australian Constitution.

Nicholas Aroney (Author)

9780521888646, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 February 2009

448 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.5 cm, 0.83 kg

'… this book makes an important contribution to the study of the history of the Australian constitutional system and of the concept of federalism … but its threefold significance goes far beyond the Australian case. First, the work liberates us from the habit of always understanding federal experience by reference to the emblematic example of the United States … Next, the thesis convincingly demonstrates the link between the genesis of the Australian constitution and its content and, if correct, refutes the principal arguments of German and French scholarship … that to study any constitution the jurist must separately consider legal history, constitutional history and constitutional law … [Finally, in so doing], the book advances a radically new way of understanding federalism … Aroney's book is a model for all who would boldly re-interpret the historical formation of modern federations.' Olivier Beaud, Jus Politicum: Revue de droit politique

By analysing original sources and evaluating conceptual frameworks, this book discusses the idea proclaimed in the Preamble to the Constitution that Australia is a federal commonwealth. Taking careful account of the influence which the American, Canadian and Swiss Constitutions had upon the framers of the Australian Constitution, the author shows how the framers wrestled with the problem of integrating federal ideas with inherited British traditions and their own experiences of parliamentary government. In so doing, the book explains how the Constitution came into being in the context of the groundswell of federal ideas then sweeping the English-speaking world. In advancing an original argument about the relationship between the formation of the Constitution, the representative institutions, configurations of power and amending formulas contained therein, light is shed on the terms and structure of the Constitution and a range of problems associated with its interpretation and practical operation are addressed.

Preface
Table of statues and executive instruements
Table of cases
Introduction: Australia as a federal commonwealth
Part I. Federalism: 1. Conceptualising federalism
2. Reframing the analysis
Part II. Federating Australia: 3. Models and sources
4. Australian appropriations
5. Constitutional foundations
6. Formative institutions
Part III. Australian Federation: 7. Principles of representation
8. Representative institutions
9. The states and the Commonwealth
10. Configurations of power
11. Amendment procedures
Part IV. Conclusions: 12. A federal commonwealth
Select provisions
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Law [L], Political science & theory [JPA]