ABSTRACT
The doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty has long been regarded as the most fundamental element of the British Constitution. It is said that parliament is able to make or unmake any law whatsoever, and the courts have no authority to declare statutes invalid for violating either moral or legal rights of any kind. A similar doctrine has traditionally been thought to apply to the power of parliaments in New Zealand and Australia, although in the latter case only in a heavily qualified form. In Australia, it is said that state and national parliaments are bound by the express and implied provisions included in various written constitutions, but not by moral rights or common law principles, and therefore that, within their respective constitutional boundaries, they are as sovereign as the British Parliament.2
