Full text: Responsible government in the Dominions (Vol. 1)

car. 111] REPUGNANCY OF COLONIAL LAWS 407 
the Act of the old Legislative Council, No. 2, 1855-6. Upon 
the invalidity of other and subsequent South Australian 
Acts, some of them intimately connected with the Constitu- 
tional Act, we have already expressed our opinion on another 
case submitted to us, and an Imperial Act has been passed 
to remedy their defects. 
9. We understand that the express mention of New South 
Wales and Van Dieman’s Land in the 29th section of the 
13 & 14 Vict. ¢. 59, so far as relates to courts of justice, was 
or may have been considered to be rendered necessary by 
Imperial legislation on the subject of the courts of justice of 
those Colonies previous to the passing of that Act, and that no 
similar legislation had taken place with respect to courts of 
justice in South Australia. Under these circumstances we 
see no reason to doubt the power of the South Australian 
Legislature to constitute courts of justice. 
10. We deem it to be the duty of a single judge in any 
particular case, generally speaking, to conform his own 
judgement to the decision on the same point of the Supreme 
Court of which he is a member. Such is the practice of 
single judges in the United Kingdom, and a departure from 
it, unless under extraordinary circumstances, would, as it 
seems to us, be highly inconvenient. 
11. We have already answered this question in the affirma- 
tive, and would only add that we do not think it expedient 
to go further in the way of new Imperial legislation than is 
proposed to be done in the Bill now before Parliament. 
The unhappy Colony was still to have another experienco 
of invalidity on the ground of repugnancy, for while the 
Acts in question were validated, another serious blunder was 
made with regard to a subsequent Electoral Act of 1861, 
though reserved, by not seeing that the statutory majorities 
in the two Houses had been observed as required by s. 34 of the 
Constitution Act itself. The Acts subsequent to the operation 
of the Electoral Act were thus all invalid, and required to be 
validated, and moreover, the judges were inclined to believe 
that the Legislature could not alter its constitution as a 
whole.! An attempt was made to settle the question by the 
passing of the Act 26 & 27 Vict. c. 84.2 But the Act was of 
See Blackmore, Constitution of South Australia, p. 60. 
South Australia Parl. Pap., 1863, Nos. 23, 129, 130.
	        
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