Competing visions of ‘the people’ in Australia: First Nations and the state
In 2020 the Australian High Court decided the case of Love v. Commonwealth Thoms v. Commonwealth , a claim of constitutional belonging by two Aboriginal men. The Court was fractured in its reasoning and conclusion, a majority deciding that ‘Aboriginal Australians’ cannot be aliens. The case sits wit...
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Edward Elgar Publishing
2023
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credwardepubl:10.4337/ccs.2023.0007 2024-06-09T07:45:58+00:00 Competing visions of ‘the people’ in Australia: First Nations and the state Arcioni, Elisa 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/ccs.2023.0007 https://www.elgaronline.com/view/journals/ccs/1/1/article-p75.xml https://www.elgaronline.com/downloadpdf/journals/ccs/1/1/article-p75.xml unknown Edward Elgar Publishing Comparative Constitutional Studies volume 1, issue 1, page 75-100 ISSN 2752-9665 2752-9673 journal-article 2023 credwardepubl https://doi.org/10.4337/ccs.2023.0007 2024-05-15T13:18:55Z In 2020 the Australian High Court decided the case of Love v. Commonwealth Thoms v. Commonwealth , a claim of constitutional belonging by two Aboriginal men. The Court was fractured in its reasoning and conclusion, a majority deciding that ‘Aboriginal Australians’ cannot be aliens. The case sits within a longer and ongoing story regarding the interaction between First Nations peoples and the Australian settler colonial state. The reasoning of the Love/Thoms case reveals two contrasting visions of the constitutional identity of ‘the people’ – one being a plural and diverse conception potentially capable of accommodating a distinct identity of First Nations peoples, the other being a unified conception dominated by formal equality and democratic participation. A study of the Love/Thoms case in its context also speaks to broader questions of constitutional identity. First, that constitutional identity is constructed through the interaction of multiple actors. It is through an ongoing dialogic between constitutional actors that constitutional identity evolves over time. Second, that there is a relationship between the identity of ‘the people’ and of their Constitution. A study of the construction of the constitutional identity of ‘the people’ in this case reveals principal characteristics of the Australian state’s constitutionalism: going to institutional and substantive questions regarding the respective roles of the people and the Courts, equality and sovereignty. Article in Journal/Newspaper First Nations Edward Elgar Publishing Comparative Constitutional Studies 1 1 75 100 |
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In 2020 the Australian High Court decided the case of Love v. Commonwealth Thoms v. Commonwealth , a claim of constitutional belonging by two Aboriginal men. The Court was fractured in its reasoning and conclusion, a majority deciding that ‘Aboriginal Australians’ cannot be aliens. The case sits within a longer and ongoing story regarding the interaction between First Nations peoples and the Australian settler colonial state. The reasoning of the Love/Thoms case reveals two contrasting visions of the constitutional identity of ‘the people’ – one being a plural and diverse conception potentially capable of accommodating a distinct identity of First Nations peoples, the other being a unified conception dominated by formal equality and democratic participation. A study of the Love/Thoms case in its context also speaks to broader questions of constitutional identity. First, that constitutional identity is constructed through the interaction of multiple actors. It is through an ongoing dialogic between constitutional actors that constitutional identity evolves over time. Second, that there is a relationship between the identity of ‘the people’ and of their Constitution. A study of the construction of the constitutional identity of ‘the people’ in this case reveals principal characteristics of the Australian state’s constitutionalism: going to institutional and substantive questions regarding the respective roles of the people and the Courts, equality and sovereignty. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Arcioni, Elisa |
spellingShingle |
Arcioni, Elisa Competing visions of ‘the people’ in Australia: First Nations and the state |
author_facet |
Arcioni, Elisa |
author_sort |
Arcioni, Elisa |
title |
Competing visions of ‘the people’ in Australia: First Nations and the state |
title_short |
Competing visions of ‘the people’ in Australia: First Nations and the state |
title_full |
Competing visions of ‘the people’ in Australia: First Nations and the state |
title_fullStr |
Competing visions of ‘the people’ in Australia: First Nations and the state |
title_full_unstemmed |
Competing visions of ‘the people’ in Australia: First Nations and the state |
title_sort |
competing visions of ‘the people’ in australia: first nations and the state |
publisher |
Edward Elgar Publishing |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/ccs.2023.0007 https://www.elgaronline.com/view/journals/ccs/1/1/article-p75.xml https://www.elgaronline.com/downloadpdf/journals/ccs/1/1/article-p75.xml |
genre |
First Nations |
genre_facet |
First Nations |
op_source |
Comparative Constitutional Studies volume 1, issue 1, page 75-100 ISSN 2752-9665 2752-9673 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.4337/ccs.2023.0007 |
container_title |
Comparative Constitutional Studies |
container_volume |
1 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
75 |
op_container_end_page |
100 |
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1801375642934050816 |