ANNE TWOMEY, University of Sydney - Faculty of Law
Email: a.twomey@usyd.edu.au

When criticism is made of the operation of the federal system in Australia, the answer often proposed is 'regionalism'. Sometimes what is meant is the introduction of a fourth tier of regional governments, but more often what is proposed is the abolition of State and local governments and the creation instead of a two-tiered system of national and regional governments. A third alternative that has been raised is the creation of a number of new States so that each region becomes a State, as this may be constitutionally easier to achieve than the abolition of the existing states. This article examines these various proposals, assessing whether they are likely to achieve their purported aims and raising the many practical problems that would arise if they were to be implemented. It ends by noting the difficulty in assessing regionalism proposals due to their lack of clarity and detail and concludes that the case for regionalism as an alternative to federalism or as a means of reforming it has not yet been made out.

BERNARD CAIRNS, The University of Queensland - T.C. Beirne School of Law
Email: b.cairns@law.uq.edu.au
STEPHEN WILLIAMS, The University of Queensland - Faculty of Business - Economics and Law
Email: s.williams@business.uq.edu.au

In 2002 the Supreme Court introduced a system of individual case monitoring for cases in Brisbane by a practice direction entitled Case-Flow Management -- Civil Jurisdiction. The case-flow Practice Direction promotes the overriding objective in r.5 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules, namely to facilitate the just and expeditious resolution of the real issues at a minimum of expense. The court must apply the rules to avoid undue delay, expense and technicality. It must facilitate the purpose of the rules. There must therefore be a means for the court to monitor individual cases and compare their progress with the court's time standards. A computer system tracks the progress of individual cases and flags those cases where there is a time over-run. The court stated in its Annual Report for 2002/2003 that managing cases is ''court driven'' rather than ''practitioner driven''.

CHRISTIAN WITTING, University of Melbourne - Law School
Email: c.witting@unimelb.edu.au

In Leichhardt Municipal Council vs. Montgomery, the High Court of Australia was faced with two important questions. It was required to rule on whether a roads authority owes a non delegable duty to a pedestrian using the road. The Court refused to recognise such a duty. It was also invited to comment upon the fundamental nature of the non delegable duty. A majority of the Court ruled that the non delegable duty is not a freestanding tort, but rather a doctrine of strict liability arising in cases of negligence. This case note critiques the model of liability adopted by the Court and argues that the non delegable duty is best seen as an independent tort of strict liability.

LI-ANN THIO, National University of Singapore - Faculty of Law
Email: lawtla@nus.edu.sg

Singapore has never adopted a laissez faire approach towards free speech, which is constitutionally entrenched in article 14 of the Singapore Constitution. Indeed, free speech is a means to various ends; its rationale is grounded in the arguments from truth, self-expression and democracy, which views political speech as the lifeblood of democratic societies. The official government view has been that an excessive focus on political liberties is destabilizing and inimical to economic growth and communitarian 'Asian values'. Nonetheless, government policy has undergone a minor sea-change in loosening restrictions on political liberties to accommodate the demands of a more educated, affluent citizenry for greater participation in public affairs. This article focuses on two questions.

First, what is the evolving government approach towards regulating political speech in the real and virtual realm. There has been a shift from 'blanket bans' to a more calibrated approach towards managing free speech issues. Second, what insight does the scope of free speech shed in relation to the type of political community we are, how we value political speech and other social goods. It evaluates law and policy which regulates political speech, as well as judicial approaches towards construing article 14 issues. It offers an in-depth analysis of the only public law case concerning speech in cyberspace, in relation to racist blogs. In particular, it analyzes how political digital speech can both promote and undermine democracy in Singapore, measured against the central role free speech plays in promoting truth and solidifying a democratic order.

GEOFF MCLAY, Victoria University of Wellington - Law Faculty, New Zealand Law Foundation
Email: Geoff.McLay@vuw.ac.nz

This article attempts to explain the relative lack of cases brought for "public law compensation" or damages under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 both by reference to the reluctance of the New Zealand courts to expand the remedy and to the nature of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and its place within the New Zealand legal universe. The author links that lack of success with the marked reluctance by judges in the United Kingdom to use damages as a remedy for breaches of the Human Rights Act 1998 (UK). This article argues that the source of the failure of Baigent's Case, in which the New Zealand Court of Appeal asserted jurisdiction to award compensation for breaches of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, lies not only in a combination of factors to do with the sorts of right recognized by that enactment, but also in the fact that Baigent's Case (along with human rights compensation in other jurisdictions) has been undertheorized. The author examines and rejects the usual justifications given for compensation in private law cases, namely compensation, deterrence, and "corrective justice". In the author's view, the Supreme Court of New Zealand's decision in Taunoa v Attorney-General in August 2007 hints at, but does not completely explain, a signalling role for monetary awards against the government. Any complete theory of human rights compensation needs to be placed within the body of wider "public" mechanisms that courts have to control public authorities and to assess the extra value that such damages awards have in relation to other remedies. The article suggests that such an inquiry would force a little more light onto the much vexed division between public and private law.

SAMPRIT CHAKRABARTI, International School of Business and Media
Email: samprit.chakrabarti@gmail.com

The drive for industrialization in India is not a recent move. The state governments are in competition among themselves to attract the industrialists for investments in their respective states. In this regard, the recent industrial endeavor in West Bengal has met with lot of trouble. The problem arose from the day when the state agency started with the land acquisition activity. Agricultural land was identified for the setting up of an industrial unit of a reputed industry group. Some of the land owners accepted the compensation package, which had been offered to them, while some others protested about the package and the acquisition. The present paper tries to analyze the situation through the formulation of a model of contract theory. The paper talks about the participation of the land owners and the acceptance of the compensation package by structuring suitable individual rationality constraint or participation constraint and incentive compatibility constraint. Lastly, the paper comes up with suggestive results for suitable compensation packages.