S 79 Constitution reads: The federal jurisdiction of any court shall be exercised by such number of judges as Parliament prescribes. No section of the Constitution has been less discussed in the Law Reports or directly referred to in any of the many decisions of the High Court since 1900. It could hold the key to the continued functioning of the Federation, and it is probably time the Parliament of the Commonwealth defined the number of judges who can exercise the federal jurisdiction of any court consistently with S 71 Constitution.

The federal jurisdiction of the High Court is prescribed by S 71 Constitution and should be exercised by the Chief Justice and so many other Justices not less than two, as Parliament prescribes and not otherwiise. There is a conflict between S 71 Constitution and S 15 Judiciary Act 1903, which says; the jurisdiction of the High Court may, subject to the provisions of this Act, be exercised by one or more Justices sitting in open Court.

Further conflict occurs between S 77 (i) Constitution and S 15 Judiciary Act 1903, because S 77 (i) States: Parliament may make laws: (i) defining the jurisdiction of any federal court other than the High Court.

For the peace order and good government of the Commonwealth, these conflicts and inconsistencies need resolution, and the elected judges of the House of Representatives and the Senate should address them this term of Parliament. Rudd says he is a Constitutionalist, and these problems need a solution

the courts should stop the cover up about victims who were raped and abused and who were made slaves and tortured in the states and territories , orphanages,girls homes , boys homes, remand centres, state ward homes , state run church homes, and many more ,

so why does the courts cover up for the goverment when we victims have told the truth , but the states have destroyed the proof to prove our victims case even stating this in a court case yet the victim which was me was denide justice , by the very courts who are to give justcie , and i am not the only victim the supreme court of sydney has denied justice to ,

so how can the courts get away with these cover ups of the rapes and abuses we victims suffered while under the care of the state goverment and the australian commonwealth

we are real victims we are the forgotten australians and will no longer be forgotten

from a real victim the state goverment of new south wales covers up abut , and their are many more victims the goverments have done the same to

I agree with comments about section 79. As I see it section 79 ties in with section 80 which gives us the right to be heard as a defendant or as a prosecutor by the people or peers as the law states regardless as to what the claim is be it a parking ticket or an allegation of terrorism. Only courts can decide whether or not we are to be taken of our liberties, it is well outside the restrictions of the law to be taken of our liberties by a government department. Judges capital "J" is an indication of an administrative government department, small letter "j" is an indication of a proper court with peers as the judge. Capital "C" Courts are also an indication of administrative government departments instead of "c" being an indication of a real court.

Huffnpuf and Daryloflife are going to be disappointed.

PtB only starts these threads as a way to harp on his single issue: replacing Australian law and government with Christian theocracy.

Sancho should go back to serving Don Quixote, and engage his brain before he engages his fingers and lets them loose on a keyboard. Some people are too slow to grasp an idea whose time has come, or look behind a thread of words to see what they actually mean. He would make a good High Court Judge, if his latest post is any indication of his intellectual prowess.

Too many threads descend in denigration of one another, and one of the blights on the Keating years was the string of near obscenities that Paul Keating seemed unable to refrain from uttering, about his opponents. The learned scholars in the United States who developed the art of deconstruction in order to determine the meaning of an Act of Parliament would have a field day with s 79 Constitution.

Bob Hawke decided that it was important in finding the context in which words were strung together in order to determine what the will of the Parliament was at the time that an Act was made. We are looking here at the Constitution which is the most important Statute in the Commonwealth, and Panza wants to mock the attempt: As they occasionally said to Keating: Shame, Shame.

Hawke introduced further instructions into the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 ( Cth) so that thinking Australians could be expected to interpret Statute Law better, and the section he introduced was S 15AB. Use of extrinsic material in the interpretation of an Act. This was added in 1984, and I think it is fair to say that S 79 Constitution is within S 15 AB (1) (b) (i) The provision is ambiguous or obscure. S 79 was not ambiguous or obscure to people in 1900. Everyone knew what to expect from a court, and what judges were, at that time.

When we consider the recent decision of the High Court in Pape v The Commonwealth where five out of the seven Justices, stated that S 15A Construction of Acts to be subject to the Constitution, is not controversial, then clarifying S 79 is of paramount importance

Every section of an Act shall have effect as a substantive enactment without introductory words. This is S 12 of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 ( Cth). This was one of the very first legislative acts of the Parliament of the Commonwealth. S 13 (2) reads every schedule to an Act shall be deemed to form part thereof. Section 79 Constitution is one of those sections that stands alone, there are no introductory words, it is not a Schedule, although the Oath of Allegiance to Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second is. The clarification of this small section, with eighteen words in it, is not something that should be left to lawyers.

We are all members of the Commonwealth. ( even Sancho) and we all speak English, more or less. Surely it is not too much to expect that we should be assisted in every way to read and understand the instructions in the instruction book. I once wrote that the law should be as precise and clear as an engineering drawing. I still adhere to that view.

There is no shortage of argument that jury trial is as of right in criminal matters. What about cases where the State is a criminal. There is a man arguing in front of the Supreme Court in Queensland right now, at Toowoomba, that Peter Beattie, Anna Bligh, Andrew Fraser and Warren Pitt, are criminals, who illegally amalgamated the Clifton Shire out of existence despite a plebiscite forbidding the amalgamations. If it is tried as a criminal matter with a jury he could win.

He has some powerful arguments, that as far as I know are not yet posted on the web. However in order for lawyers to be able to decide cases in their offices, and have their decisions carried out by Judges, with the clients paying both sides lots of money, the provisions of S 79 have to be set aside.

The failure to declare what S 79 Constitution actually means, by successive governments since 1900, has served Australia badly in broken and destroyed lives that have been shattered by bad judgments