Author Archives: Simon Evans

About Simon Evans

Simon Evans is a Professor in the Melbourne Law School and the University of Melbourne's Pro Vice-Chancellor (International). His scholarly work is as a comparative public lawyer, with broad interests in constitutional and administrative law, particularly in common law and Commonwealth countries. He holds an ARC funded Discovery Project grant to analyse the powers and accountabilities of the executive branch of government. He recently completed a major project investigating the capacity of parliaments to protect human rights and the effectiveness of the Commonwealth model of human rights protection. He has also worked on the implementation of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights.

Williams [No 2] Symposium: Simon Evans on Benefits to Students

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By Professor Simon Evans

Williams [No 2] Case Page

The National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP) was struck down in Williams [No 2] because, the High Court concluded, the Commonwealth legislation that purported to authorise it was not a law with respect to ‘benefits to students’.

Williams [No 2] does not determine the fate of this legislation more generally or of the myriad other programs it was enacted to validate following Williams [No 1].

Nor does it deal a permanently fatal blow to the NSCP. But it does raise serious issues for Commonwealth laws and schemes that deal with students and education. This post is an initial sketch of some of those issues and the questions that will have to be addressed in coming months. Continue reading →