Commercial Law: Separation of Powers and Balance of Power Shifted to Favor Commonwealth

COMMERCIAL LAW
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Institution
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Commercial Law
Constitution is a document containing set of rules by which a country is run. The
Constitution outlines three main separate groups in the first three of its chapters. These three
groups are the arms of government that include the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary.
The constitution also defines the roles of each arm of government. Therefore, this paper intends
to discuss the separation of powers as outlined in the constitution and the reason why the balance
of power has shifted to favor Commonwealth since federation.
Division of Powers under the Constitution
The constitution gives the powers of law making to the Commonwealth Parliament where
it outlines the division of powers. The division of powers is the use of a Constitution to allocate
law making powers between the Commonwealth and State governments. It brings together four
sections, which include authorities such as the specific powers, concurrent powers, exclusive
powers, and residual powers. The specific powers are the authorities awarded to the
Commonwealth to enable it to make laws. The specific powers are sequentially listed under
Sections 51 and 52 of the Constitution. These powers have been provided to the commonwealth
to make laws for good governance, peace, and order. Additionally, exclusive powers are laws
making authorities given specifically to the Commonwealth. These set of laws making powers
only authorizes the Commonwealth to make laws, but prohibits the States (Turner, 2015).
Exclusive powers include areas of the national concern, for example, the department of defense,
immigration, and currency. Consequently, concurrent powers are the non-exclusive law making
powers given to commonwealth and are also shared with the States. They are referred as
concurrent powers because both the States and the Commonwealth have been given powers to
make laws in these areas. The areas include bankruptcy, divorce, and marriage. However, if the
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