http://dx.doi.org/10.59704/1eb48c8f22581fcf https://verfassungsblog.de/civil-disobedience-and-judicial-theories-of-political-change/ Civil Disobedience and Judicial Theories of Political Change - Kvelde v New South Wales Hicks, Liz eng 2024-02-01 electronic resource text/html ddc:342 Australien Civil Disobedience Implied freedom Australien Verfassungsblog Verfassungsblog--2366-7044 CC BY-SA 4.0 This post considers the latest episode of Australia’s engagement with civil disobedience under its constitutionally ‘implied freedom of political communication’ — Kvelde v New South Wales (‘Kvelde’). In Kvelde a judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court followed the tendency of some High Court judges of reducing the democratic value of civil disobedience to binary terms: if a form of political speech is already illegal, the Court will not engage with further legislative acts seeking to increase penalties for it. I describe this as the ‘binary approach.’ I argue that the binary approach reflects a particular judicial theory of political change not necessarily prescribed by the freedom, that is also out of step with historical Australian political practices.