From Dialogue to Disagreement in Comparative Rights Constitutionalism

Scott Stephenson

"The bills of rights adopted in the Commonwealth countries of Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and, at the subnational level, Australia in recent decades, have prompted scholars and institutional actors involved in the process of constitutional design and reform to rethink how to evaluate and compare the different approaches to human rights protection. They have challenged a number of assumptions in the field, for example, that courts must have the power to invalidate laws that are found to violate rights (i.e. courts can now be given non-binding powers), that courts must have the 'final word' on rights issues (i.e. legislatures can now be given the power to override judicial decisions) and that bills of rights are enforced exclusively by courts (i.e. legislators can now be given new responsibilities to ensure that the laws they enact are compatible with rights). This book...