PATHOLOGIES IN QUEENSLAND LAW-MAKING: REPAIRING POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONALISM

Abstract

Law-making in Queensland has suffered decades of ongoing pathologies. Such institutional infirmity is a product of a shallow political constitutionalism which trusts an all-mighty executive to dominate a unicameral legislature composed by winner-takes-all elections. The present essay charts recent examples of legislation trammeling due process and equality rights and interests in both criminal and public law.  It concludes by exploring reform options to reinvigorate parliamentary oversight and deliberation via a proportionally elected upper or lower house.