Like the other branches of government, parliaments are ‘responsible constitutional agent[s]’.[1] They play a formative part ‘in expressing and pursuing’ constitutional government.[2] A dimension of this agency is that parliaments, and more specifically parliamentarians, have a responsibility to consider whether proposed laws overstep the constitutional boundaries of their powers.[3] When, as is the wont of constitutional principles, the relevant limits are uncertain, the task of deliberating about constitutional validity can be challenging. Difficulties increase when a proposed law is an innovative attempt to respond to emerging problems at the edge of doctrine espoused in previous constitutional decisions.
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(2017) 40(3) UNSWLJ 976: https://doi.org/10.53637/YJXF5657
- Neal Devins and Keith E Whittington, ‘Introduction’ in Neal Devins and Keith E Whittington (eds), Congress and the Constitution (Duke University Press, 2005) 1, 2.
- Amy Gutmann, ‘Forward: Legislatures in the Constitutional State’ in Richard W Bauman and Tsvi Kahana (eds), The Least Examined Branch: The Role of Legislatures in the Constitutional State (Cambridge University Press, 2006) ix.
- See generally Gabrielle Appleby and Adam Webster, ‘Parliament’s Role in Constitutional Interpretation’ (2013) 37 Melbourne University Law Review 255; Andrew Lynch and Tessa Meyrick, ‘The Constitution and Legislative Responsibility’ (2007) 18 Public Law Review 158, 163–4.