{"title":"Debunking the myth of instant harmonisation and embracing the iterative approach","authors":"Guzyal Hill","doi":"10.1177/1037969X231190485","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Calls for federal harmonisation of legislation can result in a heated debate revolving around substantive law and an approach to achieve harmonisation. Some favour a bottom-up approach whereby the state and territory jurisdictions achieve uniform legislation without interference from the Commonwealth. Others favour a top-down approach whereby the Commonwealth achieves uniform legislation. This article argues that these two approaches create a false impression of instant harmonisation. Harmonisation of legislation cannot be treated as a short-term project in which uniformity has to be achieved by a specified deadline; rather, the exercise of harmonisation requires ongoing reforms based on consecutive waves. Therefore, policymakers, law reformers and legislative drafters must adopt a long-term view of harmonisation as an iterative process.","PeriodicalId":44595,"journal":{"name":"Alternative Law Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Alternative Law Journal","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1037969X231190485","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Calls for federal harmonisation of legislation can result in a heated debate revolving around substantive law and an approach to achieve harmonisation. Some favour a bottom-up approach whereby the state and territory jurisdictions achieve uniform legislation without interference from the Commonwealth. Others favour a top-down approach whereby the Commonwealth achieves uniform legislation. This article argues that these two approaches create a false impression of instant harmonisation. Harmonisation of legislation cannot be treated as a short-term project in which uniformity has to be achieved by a specified deadline; rather, the exercise of harmonisation requires ongoing reforms based on consecutive waves. Therefore, policymakers, law reformers and legislative drafters must adopt a long-term view of harmonisation as an iterative process.