Constitutional and Human Rights Disturbances: Australia’s Privative Clauses Created Both in an Immigration Context

With the arrival of another wave of “boat people” to Australian waters in late 2009, issues of human rights of asylum seekers and refugees once again became a major feature of the political landscape. Claims of “queue jumping” were made, particularly by some sections of the media, and they may seem populist, but they are also ironic, given the protracted efforts on the part of the federal government to stymie any orderly appeals process, largely through resort to “privative clauses”. Such clauses demonstrate the many ways in which human rights of those seeking asylum in far-off lands and are potential future immigrants, who often lack much-touted needed papers, yet who are for the most part genuine refugees, are subject to the slings and arrows of political fortune (and misfortune). Approaching the courts if treated unfairly or seeking a further decision as to your fate would seem one of the fundamental premises of human rights. Yet privative clauses—or attempts to ouster the jurisdiction of the courts and to insulate decisions from appeal—have become an increasingly frequent feature of the Australian migration legislation. With a seemingly watertight federal constitutional power set in stone since 1901, to deal with migration and aliens, and without the tempered contemporary update of a federal Bill of Rights, the Australian federal government has been able to narrow the grounds of judicial review in those contexts. We argue that the concerted efforts to deny such fundamental rights of appeal to those most in need of the full armoury of the protection of the law in a modern, affluent democracy, constitutes both a breach of their human rights and a breach of core constitutional principles such as separation of powers. Those principles may not be formally articulated in the text of the Australian Constitution, but in our view they are implicit in the constitutional arrangements, and hence we can conclude with the arguments of former Justice of the High Court of Australia, Michael Kirby, who asked—to whom does sovereignty truly belong?     

Unlocking the Alienation: A Comparative Role for Alien Torts Legislation in Post-colonial Reparations Claims?

This article continues the themes developed in a previous paper looking at reparations for past wrongs in post-colonial Australia. It narrows the focus to examine the scope of the law of tort to provide reparations suffered as a result of colonisation and dispossession, with particular emphasis on the assimilation policies whose legacy is now known emphatically, although it ought not be exclusively, as the Stolen Generations. The search for more than just words is particularly topical in light of the Australian Prime Minister’s formal apology in early 2008. This highly symbolic step must not lose momentum. That momentum could be both political and legal. In the latter context, we explore here the concept of alien tort, in the light of current Australian tort jurisprudence, which has thus far proved inadequate to achieve compensation for the harms suffered. Taking a comparative approach, procedural and substantive developments are to better deliver justice consistent with community values. In particular, the greater acceptance of psychological harm as actionable tortious conduct in Canada and the United States is examined. The article further examines the scope for stolen children to bring suit under the US Alien Tort Claims Act 1789. While the Australian government enjoys sovereign immunity in the courts of the United States, non-state organisations such as churches that were complicit in the forcible removals may be subject to United States jurisdiction wherever they have a presence in that country. The procedural and substantive elements of such a claim are discussed. In particular, the relevant cause of action, the issue of forum non conveniens and the statute of limitations will be analysed to map out whether a claim could be developed and successfully prosecuted.     

Developmental Trajectories of Aggressive and Non-Aggressive Conduct Problems

Modeling the heterogeneous trajectories along which antisocial behaviordevelops in childhood and adolescence may contribute in important waysto understanding antecedents of offending in adult life. This paperexamines the development of aggressive and non-aggressive conduct problemsin the Great Smoky Mountains Study of Youth, a longitudinal study in thesoutheastern United States. Aggressive and non-aggressive conduct problemsof clinical severity, police contact and arrest, and family andenvironmental correlates were assessed in four annual interviews for789 boys and 630 girls aged 9–13 at first interview. The bestfitting latent class model identified three developmental trajectories:stable low problem levels, stable high problem levels, and declining levelsof conduct problems, for both aggressive and non-aggressive behaviors. Boyswere over-represented in the stable high trajectory class on the aggressivetrajectory, but sex differences in non-aggressive trajectories were lessmarked. The overlap between aggressive and non-aggressive trajectory classeswas quite limited. Both classifications showed strong associations withrisks of police contact and arrest in early adolescence, and with measuresof family adversity. The results are discussed in relation to developmentalmodels of conduct disorder and delinquency.     

Parental Demandingness and Executive Functioning in Predicting Anxiety among Children in a Longitudinal Community Study

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Theoretical models and empirical studies of anxiety have predominately focused on the main effects of various predictors such as executive functioning deficits on...     

Feminism,imperialism and race: a dialogue between India and Britain

Abstract

During the partition period and up to 1918, Polish women's interests and aspirations outside the family were in increasingly frequent cases directed to taking up paid work and resorting to other measures in order to sustain their family. In other cases women's activity was shaped by experiences of resistance to national and sometimes also religious discrimination. In the early twentieth century only small groups of women put forward demands for equality, and even if they did so, they usually thought that this would be possible only after the rebirth of an independent foolish state. It is to this supreme aim that they subordinated their interest and their struggle for equality.     

The Gender Gap in Ideology

Over the past few decades, a gender gap has emerged in the mass public in ideological self-placement. While most men and women moved in the conservative direction, another segment of women retained their liberal self-identifications. A gender gap also exists in how men and women define their ideology. Which issues are linked to ideological identities is conditioned by gender and time period. Finally, ideological identities are structure by nonpolitical values as well as political issues. Religiosity and religious beliefs have come to increasingly shape Americans’ ideological identities, with some differences across the two sexes.

Turnover among City Managers: The Role of Political and Economic Change

Executive turnover can have profound effects on city policies, programs, and commitments such as contracting or issuing debt. This article identifies how political changes, reflected in the composition of the city council, and economic changes in the community influence city manager turnover. Analysis of manager turnover patterns in 143 large U.S. cities with council-manager governments from 1987 to 1999 allows us to distinguish "push" and "pull" factors that can induce city managers to leave their jobs. The empirical analysis demonstrates that political conflict and economic development can influence the likelihood that a city manager will exit a community, but these effects can be complex. In particular, the influence of community economic development on turnover includes a temporal dimension not revealed in previous research. We conclude by discussing the findings' implications for career patterns in city management.