Community Law Resource Group

A CASE FOR EQUALITY

The Punctuation of S79 Constitution

As women have had the vote extended to them in Australia the male estate has excluded all but lawyer women from full participation in the democratic process and this article contends that the abolition of civil juries is to oppress the fifty percent of the population, who are female. Sentencing which was also one of the prerogatives of a jury is now always done by a Judge. Is this because the education system no longer teaches effective punctuation?

Section 79 of the Australian Constitution reads like this: The federal jurisdiction of any court may be exercised by such number of judges as Parliament prescribes.

This innocuous sentence contains a large number of ideas, and understanding what  those ideas mean requires a great deal of research and introspection. The second and third words, federal jurisdiction imply that there is a Judicial Power of the Commonwealth which is the same as that referred to in S 71 Constitution, and that is what is referred to in section 79. The reasonable interpretation of the section is thus to tie in the Judicial Power of the Commonwealth with Federal jurisdiction.

In the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 ( Cth) the federal act that governs Statutory Interpretation in Australia the following provisions are enacted:

(1)   Section 15A provides that all Acts are subject to the Constitution.

(2)   Section 15AA provides that regard to be had to the purpose or object of Act.

(3)    Section 15AB says that extrinsic material may be used to confirm that the meaning conveyed in the text is the ordinary meaning of the provision taking into account its context in the act and purpose or object of the Act.

The second interesting word is any. Any is an inclusive word, and has a special meaning. It means among other things: no matter which.

The third word of interest is court, and the next is judges. The words are uncapitalised.

Punctuation marks –Capital letters- Punctuation marks help the reader to clarify meaning and also to

establish the tone of the text they are reading. They are therefore really important marks for you to learn how to use correctly in your writing.   Capital letters were traditionally used to show ‘respect’ for particular words, and as a result, they have an important place in written English.

Does this make a difference?  It could make a huge difference. The word court is coupled with judges, in S 2 Judiciary Act 1903 the word Appeal is defined as any proceeding to review or call in question the proceedings decision or jurisdiction of any Court or Judge.

In this instance both Court and Judge are capitalized. The word any is coupled with them. In 1903, the evidence was that a court was a Justice with a jury, and a Federal Supreme Court was to be a place, so was capitalized. So also was the High Court printed in capitals. Places are traditionally capitalized; as  in Brisbane and Sydney. In Ch III Constitution the word Justices and Justice is capitalized universally. Commonwealth is capitalized, Parliament is capitalized, but nowhere else where court is mentioned is it capitalized.

The Australian Courts Act 1828 is continued by S 11 of the Australia Act 1986. In the Evidence Act 1995, (Cth) the word court is coupled with Australian and Australian court means: (a) The High Court, (b) a court exercising federal jurisdiction, (c) a court of a State or Territory, (d) a judge , justice or arbitrator under an Australian law, (e) a person or body authorized by an Australian Law or by consent of the parties  to hear receive and examine evidence, and (f) a person or body that, in exercising a function under an Australian law, is required to apply the laws of evidence.

When we go to the Criminal Code Act 1995 ( Cth)  Dictionary, the words Commonwealth contract are coupled and a Commonwealth contract is a contract under which services are to be rendered to a Commonwealth entity. Commonwealth entity is defined as the Commonwealth, or a Commonwealth authority. Commonwealth public official is defined to include Commonwealth judicial officers, and Commonwealth judicial  officer is defined in (b) as a judge or justice of a court created by the Parliament ( other than the Federal Magistrates Court). Federal magistrate is defined similarly but separately. Commonwealth public official also includes (r.)  an individual who exercises powers or performs functions under by or under a law of the Commonwealth.

In the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 ( Cth) S 18A states that in any Act unless the contrary intention appears, where a word or phrase is given a particular meaning, other parts of speech and grammatical forms of that word or phrase have corresponding meanings. In Section 15C Acts Interpretation Act 1901 ( Cth) the word court is uncapitalised.

It is really important for the continued governance of Australia that we get a definition of what the difference is between a court and a Court. When is a Court not a court. I suppose that we could look at the Old Testament where the word court is used in Psalm 92 verse 13. Let us assume that in 1900, the King James Version was the Official Royally approved version of the Holy Bible. It says; Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.

Is a court a house of the Lord. Who ran the original courts.  It was the Lords and masters. What is a prescription? What Parliament prescribes. Every  Parliament of the Commonwealth is obliged to have juries in all criminal courts, for the trial of indictable offences. Is there any power in CH III Constitution for Parliament to define what is an indictable offence. A diligent search has failed to find one. Indictment is defined in S 4A Crimes Act 1914 ( Cth) as including an information and a presentment.

On a website, called the www.community-law.info  speeches by prominent men like William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania in the United States of America and Lord Chatham, the one person who advocated policies for the Americas that would have avoided the War of Independence, are posted. They show that juries in all cases were a universal attribute of a functioning democracy. The Americans wrote them into their Constitution explicitly, so no one could deny. As women have obtained the franchise, they vote and serve on civil juries in the United States of America.

It is probably time that all people recognized the role of women is just as important as that of the males. Civil juries should be a Constitutional right, and women should be full participants in every court, taking part in both  giving verdicts and sentencing, as was the norm, in England when the Australian Courts Act 1828 was enacted and is still in force in the United States of America. See the post for the Coronation Oath and Magna Carta on this website.