The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

12.1.1.  The Separation of Judicial Power

One of the most important implications under the Australian Constitution con-

cerns the separation of judicial and non-judicial power at the Commonwealth 

7 

Cheryl Saunders and Adrienne Stone, ‘Constitutional Reasoning in the High Court of Australia’  

in Andras Jakab, Arthur Dyevre and Giulio Itzcovich (eds.), Comparative Constitutional Rea-

soning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

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Constitutional Implications in Australia 

347

level, or the so-called ‘Boilermakers’ principle’. The implication is drawn from 

the structural division of powers between the three branches of government 

in Chapters I, II and III of the Constitution, coupled with the extensive treat-

ment of judicial power in Chapter III itself.

8

The two limbs of the Boilermakers’ principle prohibit the vesting of federal 

judicial power in a body other than a Chapter III court, and the vesting of any 

power other than federal judicial power (and powers incidental to the exer-

cise of it) in federal Chapter III courts, with their constitutional protections 

of tenure and remuneration.

9

 The principle requires the Court to grapple 

with the definition of ‘judicial power’. In TCL Air Conditioner (ZhongShan) 

Co. Ltd v. Judges of the Federal Court of Australia, French CJ and Gageler J 

identified three aspects of federal judicial power: the nature of the function 

conferred; the process by which the function is exercised; and the necessity 

for the function to be compatible with the essential characteristics of the 

court as an impartial and independent institution.

10

 In Nicholas v. The Queen, 

Gaudron J explained the centrality of the protection of fair judicial process to 

the Boilermakers’ principle, including notions of equality before the law and 

procedural fairness.

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The Boilermakers’ principle has had a major role in shaping legislative pol-

icy in a wide variety of areas in Australia, from tribunal and court design, 

to antiterrorism and anti-organised crime, to immigration policy. In the 1995 

decision of Brandy v. Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, 

the High Court struck down an attempt by the Commonwealth government 

to introduce greater efficiencies into its tribunal system.

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 The government 

had introduced amendments that allowed the Human Rights and Equal 

Opportunities Commission’s determinations to be registered with the Federal 

Court, thus giving them the effect of court orders. Brandy threw doubt on the 

constitutional validity of several federal tribunals and eventually led to the 

introduction of the Federal Magistrates Court, now the Federal Circuit Court.

In the 2007 case of Thomas v. Mowbray, the Boilermakers’ principle was the 

basis of a challenge to a provision conferring on the Federal Magistrates Court 

the power to issue interim control orders against individuals for the purpose 

of preventing a terrorist act, and which included a statutory requirement that 

   8 

R v. Kirby; Ex parte Boilermakers’ Society of Australia (1956) 95 CLR 254, 275–8.

   9 

Constitution s 72.

10 

(2013) 251 CLR 533, 553 [27].

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(1998) 193 CLR 173, 208–9.

12 

Brandy v. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1995) 183 CLR 245. See fur-

ther discussion of this case and the consequences in Gabrielle Appleby, ‘Imperfection and 

Inconvenience: Boilermakers’ and the Separation of Judicial Power in Australia’ (2012) 30(2)