Democratic countries, such as Australia, face the dilemma of preserving public and national security without sacrificing fundamental freedoms. In the context where the rule of law is an underlying assumption of the constitutional framework, Emergency Powers in Australia provides a succinct analysis of the sorts of emergency which have been experienced in Australia and an evaluation of the legal weapons available to the authorities to cope with these emergencies. It analyses the scope of the defence power to determine the constitutionality of federal legislation to deal with wartime crises and the 'war' on terrorism, the extent of the executive power and its relationship to the prerogative, the deployment of the defence forces in aid of the civil power, the statutory frameworks regulating the responses to civil unrest, and natural disasters. The role of the courts when faced with challenges to the invocation of emergency powers is explained and analysed.
Author Biography:
H. P. Lee held the Sir John Latham Chair of Law at Monash University from 1995–2014, where he had also served as the Deputy Dean and Acting Dean. He is the co-author of The Australian Judiciary (2nd edition, Cambridge, 2012) and author of Constitutional Conflicts in Contemporary Malaysia (2nd edition, 2017). Professor Lee's other publications include: Judiciaries in Comparative Perspective (editor, Cambridge, 2011) and Asia-Pacific Judiciaries: Independence, Impartiality and Integrity (co-editor, Cambridge, 2017). He was awarded the Australian Press Council Medal in 2011. In 2015, he was appointed Emeritus Professor of Law at Monash University, Victoria. Michael W. R. Adams obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree from Monash University, Victoria, and his Bachelor of Media degree from Adelaide University. Michael most recently acted as a counsel and fellow in the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. Previously, Michael was the Associate to the Honourable Justice Pamela Tate of the Court of Appeal of Victoria and a researcher at the Victorian Law Reform Commission. As the Charles B. Bretzfelder Constitutional Law Scholar, he obtained his LL.M. from Columbia University, where he is currently doing doctoral research. Colin Campbell is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Monash University, Victoria. Colin holds Masters degrees in law from the University of Melbourne and the University of Cambridge, and a Ph.D. in law from the University of Cambridge. Formerly a solicitor and a judge's associate, Colin's main research interests lie in the areas of Administrative Law and Anti-discrimination Law. Colin has published articles in leading journals, including the Cambridge Law Journal, the Law Quarterly Review and the University of Toronto Law Journal. He is the co-editor, along with Matthew Groves, of Australian Charters of Rights a Decade On (2017). Patrick Emerton is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, Monash University. He researches in constitutional law and theory, just war theory, human rights theory, and anti-terrorism law. His recent work includes contributions to The Oxford Handbook of the Australian Constitution (2018) and The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War (2018). In 2010 the Federal Law Review awarded him the inaugural Leslie Zines Prize for Excellence in Legal Research.
