Joel Harrison (The University of Sydney Law School) has posted Religion and Australian Constitutionalism: On Contribution and Ends on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This article considers the relationship between religion and Australian constitutionalism through two themes: contribution and ends. Contribution refers to the ways in which religious communities and practices have shaped the Australian political community. Ends refers to how at times the Australian political community has been cast as directed towards a religious object, with the constitutional order then in service to this. The article argues that religion as contribution and as end within Australian constitutionalism challenges standards accounts of the relationship between religion, politics, law, and constitutional practice in Australia that rely on secularisation-as-differentiation (the claim that what is political is defined in relation to a differentiated sphere—religion). Instead, it argues that religion can be understood as a ‘complete act’ that should be considered integral to attempts, seen recently in what Chief Justice Gageler calls the ‘new constitutional law scholarship’, to characterise the Australian constitutional order.
Recommended!
To receive new posts from Legal Theory Blog by email, get a free subscription to Legal Theory Stack.
Lawrence Solum