The Representative Democracy of Australia

The case of Thomas v Mowbray revolutionised and created a new, broad, perspective of the constitutional defence powers in regards to terrorism. This was the first case to reach the High Court on the validity of anti-terrorism measures that were recently introduced to Australia by the executive. Thomas made several submissions within this case, including that the defence power was limited to defence against threats from foreign states and that the words ‘naval and military’ present in the wording of the section confines the defence power to those activities and cannot underpin broader activities to protect the community. Unfortunately, on the first point there was a 6:1 majority that the law was valid under the power for threats both domestic and foreign. Kirby J dissent held that the Commonwealth had essentially failed to establish the factual basis that was needed to support its reliance on the defence power. Further, Kirby J concluded that the ‘facts underpinning the war on terror did not constitute hostilities for the purposes of the first limb of the defence power.’ The majority of the High Court upheld the constitutional validity of the anti-terrorism laws that allowed for the courts to impose control orders upon persons of whom they believed to pose a threat due to their connections to listed terrorist organisations, regardless of the possibly that some derogable rights maybe be overridden. The control order imposed on Thomas required him to remain in his residence

What's the great urgency to mass the large force of RCMP to go in and take down the camp? I'm rather curious. Are they undertaking a test drive of Bill C-51 or exactly what's going on here?"

In 1978, on Monday the 13th of February, Australia faced what is believed to be its first experience of terrorism, when a bomb hidden in a bin outside the Sydney Hilton Hotel exploded, killing two council workers and a policeman (Cahill & Cahill, 2006). At the time, the hotel was hosting eleven heads of government who were in Sydney for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting (Cahill & Cahill, 2006). The Australian government reacted by mobilising the military, which came to be referred to as ‘Siege of Bowral’, that highlighted issues with the legislation that dealt with terrorism and how unprepared Australia was at responding to a terrorist event (Hancock, 2002). Over the following years, a range of legislation was enacted to handle matters associated with terrorism, laws such as allowing for defence to aid to the civil power, aviation and shipping safety, chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, surveillance and intelligence services (Hancock, 2002).

Over the course of the Revolutionary War, the people of the colonies fought for freedom, liberty, and a fair government. They were pursuing a better society, and wanted a non-tyrannical administration. They needed their government to reflect this. The Constitution addressed and embodied the ideals and opinions of the people during the Revolutionary Era, which included a need for a representative democracy, checks and balances on the government, and a protection for the citizen’s rights.

Since the 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil at the outset of the twenty-first century, western states have enacted vast changes in the way that they deal with terrorist groups and terrorists. Due to the fact that civilian casualties have escalated as a result of terrorist acts, western polities have steered away from a punitive paradigm that criminalizes terrorist acts and aims at penalizing individuals who perpetrate such acts. Instead, there has been a dramatic shift towards a preventative approach in which terrorist acts are prevented prior towards any manifesting and inflicting harm on innocent victims. In Jonathan Shapiro’s “An Ounce of Cure for a Pound of Preventive Detention: Security Certificates,” published in Queen’s Law Journal in 2008, discusses the paradigm shift in Canadian foreign policy as it pertains to terrorism through a cogent discussion of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). The IRPA authorizes the government to detained suspected terrorists amidst deportation proceedings. However, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a decision that the Charter was provisionally violated by certain provisions of the Act, which is the central point of contention Shapiro has in this article. Indeed, he critiques the approach of the Supreme Court in the Charkaoi v. Canada decision, positing that the security certificate process violates several of the liberty and equality

Australia is a Representative Democracy, which is an electoral system where the public gets to choose who represents them in both houses of parliament, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The people elect the candidates to which they would like to see who puts forward their interests and concerns. Those elected meet in parliament to discuss and make laws on behalf of the whole community. A translation of democracy means ‘the power of the people’ which comes from an ancient Greek and philosophical term. As a democracy, Australia has their own values and principles that are protected by the constitution and the law.

Australia’s first anti-terror laws were enacted in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11 (Prof Andrew Lynch 2010). In recent years, increasing Australian involvement in international conflict has seen these laws shift to accommodate alarming trends in home grown terrorism (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation 2014). Sydney’s 2014 terror raids prompted the most significant changes to Australia’s counter terrorism legislation in the last decade (Commonwealth of Australia Department of Defence 2015). Amendments granted law enforcement and intelligence agencies new and somewhat controversial powers, in the name of national security.

3) “It was not until after 9/11 that democratic countries introduced legislation that criminalised an ‘act of terrorism’” (O’Hare, 2011) To aid police in their fight against terrorism, the Australian Government has made a significant number of changes to current legislation, as well as introducing a number of new counter-terrorism laws to assist law enforcement in responding to terrorist threats. “The states and territories have referred legislative powers to the Commonwealth to allow the creation of a single set of terrorism offences under the Criminal Code Act 1995 (the Criminal Code).” (Counter-Terrorism White Paper, 2010, p. 55) These amendments, and additional legislation, have been instrumental in allowing law enforcement to respond to terrorist threats. In addition to new criminal offences, new powers include; more effective detention and questioning powers; the ability to declare terrorist organisations illegal; and the ability to exercise more control over people’s movements. The new counter-terrorism “offences are aimed at individuals who engage in, train for, prepare, plan, finance or provide support for terrorist acts.” (Counter-Terrorism White Paper, 2010, p. 55) Other tools within the Criminal Code available are ‘control orders’ and ‘preventative detention’. “Control orders are protective measures that can restrict a person’s movements and activities.” (Counter-Terrorism White Paper, 2010, p. 57) Whereas

Law enforcement response to counter-terrorism fundamentally changed as a result of the unprecedented events of September 11th 2001 in New York and Washington (Kaldas, 2002, p61-62). This essay will examine how law enforcement has evolved in response to the changing nature of terrorism, with an emphasis on how this has impacted Australia. An analysis of arrests and subsequent

The Webster definition for democracy is a system of rule by laws, not by individuals. In a democracy, the rule of law protects the rights of citizens, maintain orders and limits the power of the government. All citizens are equal under the law. No one may be discriminated against based on age, beliefs, race, religion, ethic group or gender. In the United States of America, our country is known for its democracy. The people hold the power to rule and make all the decisions both direct and representative. An example of direct democracy is when we can vote on certain concerns and vote on who we would like to represent for us. A direct democracy is when the people can decide on policy initiatives. Representative democracy is when we have a representative

In reference to the Australia’s system of democracy, the pluralist theory of the state portrays the distribution of political power accurately in comparison to its rival theories, being Marxism and elitism. However, the theory faces certain limitations within the Australian political system.

America was founded on the basic principle of democracy…right? Isn’t that the freedom we were searching for when the voyagers left Europe to form the US in the first place? The irony in this is that we are often taught to believe that the United States uses a true democracy. Over the years the United States has contradicted many of their basic ideologies and principles that we were founded on. For the most part, our Constitution has remained basically intact, other than minor exceptions here and there. However, our founding documents are extremely open ended and leave much room to change and interpret throughout time. Due to the flexibility of the United States founding documents the country practices a representative democracy rather

In a perfect democracy every citizen has equal accessible amount of power and freedom. In Australia everyone Australian

The United States is a representative democracy which means that the “leaders can make decisions by winning a competitive struggle” It also depends on the person when the question “how democratic should it be?” is asked. A representative democracy such as the one in the United States right now can be useful because it lessens the chance that power can be abused because there is an equal balance between the judiciary, legislative and the executive branch. Also, a representative democracy and its elections provide a chance for all of America’s voices to be heard through polls. For example, this year is an election year, so in a few months, many Americans will be expressing their views through a vote, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. However,

Bill C-51 also known as the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, is a bill that was first tabled in Parliament in January 2015. It was introduced to enhance Canada’s original anti-terror laws which were created shortly after the terrorist attack on September 11th 2001 in the United States of America. Moreover, the need to revise and amend these laws became even more evident after recent attacks both in Canada and abroad. In doing so the government recognized the need to adopt a more preventative approach to dealing with internal and external threats. However, there are a large number of individuals, groups and institutions which opposed this bill. This was evident in March of 2015 when political protests were held and over fifty-five rallies took place across Canada (Lepore, 1). The majority of those opposed to the new anti-terror legislation expressed concerns with three major components of the bill and the vagueness; to privacy concerns with the new information sharing between agencies, new amendments to the Criminal Code surrounding terrorism offences and the increased powers provided to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS); specifically their perceived lack of oversight. Although this piece of legislation is crucial to the safety and security of Canada against acts of terrorism it requires some amendments in order to ensure proper oversight and respect for Canadian values. This paper will argue that changes need to be made to the CSIS act, specifically regarding