Australia Proposes Mandatory Internet Censorship

One final thing, though:

$ilva $hadow wrote:What would happen is that I would take the repeal of the Bill of Rights Act 1998 to court and they would find it to not be an Act of Parliament due to it being unconstitutional and thus would not let that repeal take effect at all

I might add that I'm still a bit puzzled about how a judge is meant to tell whether a given law is 'protected' in this way from being repealed. Let's call laws like that "protected laws."

If (as you say) a judge must find that an attempt to repeal law X is unconstitutional, then he must be pursue a logical argument whose conclusion is that "X is a protected law."

The judge presumably obeys certain rules when making these sorts of decisions. What are the features of law X (say, the 1998 Act) that oblige him to give it "protected" status and not law Y (say, a law that says that you must drive on the left-hand side of the road)?

This conversation would be much more interesting with Phoenix Wright GIFs.

Atreyu wrote:One final thing, though:

$ilva $hadow wrote:What would happen is that I would take the repeal of the Bill of Rights Act 1998 to court and they would find it to not be an Act of Parliament due to it being unconstitutional and thus would not let that repeal take effect at all

I might add that I'm still a bit puzzled about how a judge is meant to tell whether a given law is 'protected' in this way from being repealed. Let's call laws like that "protected laws."

If (as you say) a judge must find that an attempt to repeal law X is unconstitutional, then he must be pursue a logical argument whose conclusion is that "X is a protected law."

The judge presumably obeys certain rules when making these sorts of decisions. What are the features of law X (say, the 1998 Act) that give it "protected" status and not law Y (say, a law that says that you must drive on the left-hand side of the road)?

I was just thinking about it, and I realised it's quite easy to tell what is a constitutional law and what isn't. It's what I've been saying all along. A law that governs how a government works and how the balance of power is divided between the state and the individual. Anything that gives the state a power, or gives the citizen a right. It's easy to tell that the right to freedom of speech is a constitutional right, whereas an act of Parliament which regulates opening hours of a shop is not constitutional but just a private law. Although we have the right to freedom of speech, we are not allowed to say whatever we want that could also cause dissent, so instead of repealing the act that governs freedom of speech, they just have another act the implicitly repeals the freedom of speech act by presiding over it saying you cannot incite terrorism. Doesn't mean the freedom of speech act is gone, just that the new legislation presides over it when you decide to incite terrorism and you're liable for arrest.

I went to the House of Lords awhile back and saw how badass those snobby snoots actually are over there They're strawberry floating geniuses. I'd love for one of them to step into Nevermind the Buzzcocks and slug it out in an argument. They seriously would not have any trouble like you or I would in differentiating between constitutional law and any other legislation.

MCN wrote:This conversation would be much more interesting with Phoenix Wright GIFs.

If I could, I'd give you the edit button to place in as many gifs and jpegs as you could.

$ilva $hadow wrote:

MCN wrote:This conversation would be much more interesting with Phoenix Wright GIFs.

If I could, I'd give you the edit button to place in as many gifs and jpegs as you could.

At the very least, Atreyu could use a PW avatar to counter your Miles Edgeworth one.

I only changed mine to get in that quintuplet post.

$ilva $hadow wrote:I was just thinking about it, and I realised it's quite easy to tell what is a constitutional law and what isn't. It's what I've been saying all along. A law that governs how a government works and how the balance of power is divided between the state and the individual. Anything that gives the state a power, or gives the citizen a right. It's easy to tell that the right to freedom of speech is a constitutional right, whereas an act of Parliament which regulates opening hours of a shop is not constitutional but just a private law. Although we have the right to freedom of speech, we are not allowed to say whatever we want that could also cause dissent, so instead of repealing the act that governs freedom of speech, they just have another act the implicitly repeals the freedom of speech act by presiding over it saying you cannot incite terrorism. Doesn't mean the freedom of speech act is gone, just that the new legislation presides over it when you decide to incite terrorism and you're liable for arrest.

This has all been very interesting, so thank you for that. I think your 'no permitted express repeal of constitutional laws' theory is incorrect, btw, as it contravenes the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty, but perhaps that's one for another day. Cheerio for now.

Atreyu wrote:

$ilva $hadow wrote:I was just thinking about it, and I realised it's quite easy to tell what is a constitutional law and what isn't. It's what I've been saying all along. A law that governs how a government works and how the balance of power is divided between the state and the individual. Anything that gives the state a power, or gives the citizen a right. It's easy to tell that the right to freedom of speech is a constitutional right, whereas an act of Parliament which regulates opening hours of a shop is not constitutional but just a private law. Although we have the right to freedom of speech, we are not allowed to say whatever we want that could also cause dissent, so instead of repealing the act that governs freedom of speech, they just have another act the implicitly repeals the freedom of speech act by presiding over it saying you cannot incite terrorism. Doesn't mean the freedom of speech act is gone, just that the new legislation presides over it when you decide to incite terrorism and you're liable for arrest.

This has all been very interesting, so thank you for that. I think your 'no permitted express repeal of constitutional laws' theory is incorrect, btw, as it contravenes the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty, but perhaps that's one for another day. Cheerio for now.

In theory they probably could, but they don't. It'd be unconstitutional, the Courts would have to adhere anyway. Unless it could be proven that the Act is not of Parliament. The only reason they cannot expressly repeal an Act is that again it'd be grounds for dissent. They just don't do it because of the politics involved. I'm going to have a recheck of it though. They just cover up the repeal process by express and implicit for political reasons.




EDIT: I found it. The Doctrine of Implied Repeal. Nothing stopping Parliament from expressly repealing a constitutional act, just their morals, except that implicitly repealing an act is fine and dandy without focusing attention on it. And yes you were right, I'm wrong in that Parliament is not able to expressly repeal an act, but that the chances of them expressly repealing an act is very low, and they will generaly have an implied repeal. But yes, they can expressly repeal any act should they so wish it, just that the safeguards that protect our constitutional rights are all political.

I'm not going to go to that demo tomorrow but I think I will make a complaint about the Daily Mail.
http://www.pcc.org.uk/

What do you think I should say?
EDIT: My apathy knows no bounds. I can't be bothered to complain either. You have to give citations and explain which part of the code they've broken.

$ilva $hadow wrote:



EDIT: I found it. The Doctrine of Implied Repeal. Nothing stopping Parliament from expressly repealing a constitutional act, just their morals, except that implicitly repealing an act is fine and dandy without focusing attention on it. And yes you were right, I'm wrong in that Parliament is not able to expressly repeal an act, but that the chances of them expressly repealing an act is very low, and they will generaly have an implied repeal. But yes, they can expressly repeal any act should they so wish it, just that the safeguards that protect our constitutional rights are all political.

Just in case Atreyu missed it.

My cat's breath smells like cat food.

$ilva $hadow wrote:Just in case Atreyu missed it.

Cheers, mate.

MCN wrote:Australia censor the hell out of everything. They're quite uptight for a nation descended from criminals.

This.

I'm pretty sure their government was not run by criminals but by the British officials that were probably placed there. Can't hold their criminal origins against them really, that's like blaming your mother for how you turned out because she was a thieving whore (not pointing at anyone in particular, just an example, nobody get offended please).


I'm looking at Australia's crime rankings on the net, none of the sources worthy of quoting seeing as they aren't referencing properly or link to any official government sites, but they don't seem to exactly be low on the crime rankings on various sites at all. They've apparently got more gun crime than we do in the UK. All that censoring and still having a level of crime that doesn't correlate to the censoring means that it's not games and movies that cause any crimes, nor is it alcohol or substances, just plain old human banana splits.