The Gleeson Court on Constitutional Law: An Empirical Analysis of its First Five Years

Abstract

In providing a reflective comment upon the High Court’s constitutional law decisions of a single calendar year – that of 20011 – Stephen Gageler acknowledged that to do so was largely to adopt an American tradition found within the pages of the Harvard Law Review for over half a century now.2 But, as he said, in the beginning there were the statistics. The American commentary on the Supreme Court’s term began its life as a foreword to the presentation of tables and charts indicating ‘some of the more significant features of the Court’s activity’3 across that period. The practice of critiquing recent developments in constitutional law, albeit through the lens of a particular year, is one which we can adopt without much difficulty.4 The work of the High Court of Australia in this field is already subject to a healthy amount of analysis – a steady stream in fact – from the profession, academia and, to some extent, the media. Australian lawyers have, however, been largely reticent about the use of empirical studies as a means of appreciating the dimensions of judicial work.5 Not for us, the number crunching

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