Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

Time's Up for Naughty Nathan ... Recommendation that horrible NSW solicitor be derolled ... Misuse of online funding campaigns ... Spraying ripe and abusive language ... Trolling Robert Beech-Jones ... So unfit and improper as to be beyond reeducation ... Anthony Kanaan reports ... Read more >>

Politics Media Law Society


Sex, Bribes, and Club Fed ... Ms Maxwell comes out … Sex offender gets Bryan … The merry-go-round of sleaze … Protection rackets and shake-downs … Flashing orange light for Moloch … Thank God for rigged figures … Morpheus awake ... Read on >> 

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

Wither the Republic ...Twenty years of Roger Fitch ... He says this is his last column from Washington ... A brief history of American law and governance since Bush II ... The Roberts' court and reshaping the Constitution ... Hollowing out the Bill of Rights ... Murdoch's malign influence ... Shakedowns and bribes ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian's Bloggers

Postcard from London ... Summertime - And the living' is easy ... Votes for 16-year olds ... Paralegal's theft by pen ... Spy helping British intelligence from his job at Border Force ... Super-injunction comes out of the shadows ... Feed them strawberries and cream ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt files from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"I've stopped six wars in the last - I'm averaging about a war a month. But the last three were very close together. India and Pakistan, and a lot of them. Congo was just and Rwanda was just done, but you probably know I won't go into it very much, because I don't know the final numbers yet. I don't know. Numerous people were killed, and I was dealing with two countries that we get along with very well, very different countries from certain standpoints. They've been fighting for 500 years, intermittently, and we solved that war. You probably saw it just came out over the wire, so we solved it ..."

President Donald Trump at a meeting in Scotland with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer ... July 28, 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Schmoozing and Betrayal ... Judge Water Softener rides into Integrityville mounted high on his horse ... Judicial review of corruption finding ... Unprecedented assistance to morals monitor ... Plenty to think about ... Court reporter Ginger Snatch files ... Read more >> 

 

 

Justinian's archive

Abolish silks ... Sydney SC writes to the editor calling for abolition of the silk system ... Appointments are anachronistic ... It's not a matter of ability, only notability ... Secret blackballing ... "Corrupt" process ... Confessions from an insider who played the game ... From Justinian's Archive, October 24, 2002 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« Difficulty with the word "could" | Main | The minimalist republic »
Friday
Feb122016

Migratory thoughts

While the High Court was tangling with M68's case, JD student Barely Legal was hearing submissions from fellow undergrads on the inner meaning of the Migration Act ... Justice v Law ... Purposive v Literal ... Denning v French ... Politics and law 

AS I sat in my migration law summer intensive I had the benefit of hearing my fellow classmates' views on the history and current state of Australian migration law. 

Needless to say, opinions varied. 

One student pointed out that Australia's history of immigration is one of "obfuscated racism". 

Another bright spark argued that "bikies from overseas" were one the biggest threats Australia faced, so arbitrary character assessments of all migrants are justified.  

I am in awe at the lengths to which our parliament will go to keep some people out. It involves constant reworking of that legislative Frankenstein's monster, the Migration Act, now running at over 1,000 pages with no end in sight. 

Justice Rachel Pepper from the NSW Parks & Gardens Court cited The Parliamentary Draftsman in a lecture to our JD admin law class. It's apt:   

I'm the Parliamentary Draftsman,
And my sentences are long:
They are full of inconsistencies,
Grammatically wrong.
I put Parliamentary wishes
Into language of my own,
And though no one understands them
They're expected to be known.

French CJ has said: 

"Those who are subject to the law, those who invoke it and those who apply it are entitled to expect that it means what it says."  

Peppered with poetry

If his first concern is the law, and its literal interpretation, what then of the pursuit of justice? What of a purposive approach, so missing from the majority in M68 

The highly quotable Lord Denning once said: 

"Unlike my brother judge here, who is concerned with law, I am concerned with justice." 

His "brother" could well have been French CJ. The dichotomy is enough to make a student's head burst. French or Denning? Literal or purposive? 

My sizzled brain turned back to the Migration Act, perhaps the best example we have of a legislative "orgy" - a trait bemoaned by former chief justice Murray Gleeson 

Just as the Migration Act is a creature of politics, so too our classroom discussion of it took the same form. 

Denning won the day here in the lecture room. We wanted justice, not law. Why wouldn't we, after the parliament was allowed to get away with retrospective legislation, validating past illegalities and giving the department of immigration power to take "any action" in regional processing centres? 

The problem for a law student, who has to pass exams, is that justice cannot be graded on a bell curve, whereas knowledge of the law, and the application of it, can be. 

Why then were we distracted by the "merits" of border protection and the "rights of human beings and refugees"? 

Probably because it's so much more fun than the real stuff. 

We were sidetracked by a bit of doggerel about the parliamentary draftsman, but it put me in a frame of mind to toss off my own contribution. Maybe it will be cited by Justice Pepper to another batch of law students: 

I am a law student,
And my sentences lack cred:
I struggle to understand the logic,
In my lecturer's head.
I put the Migration Act:
Into hyperbole all my own,
And though no one listens,
My opinions meet with groans. 

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Member Account Required
You must have a member account on this website in order to post comments. Log in to your account to enable posting.