constitutional-law australia regulations
What are the consequences of mistakes of execution of laws?
<p>Suppose a Public Servant states in correspondence, "This legislation requires..." and then <em>incorrectly</em> stipulates an action that <em>is not</em> in the law.</p>

<p>I assume that most constitutions set out how legislation is implemented .</p>

<p>Therefore has the Public Servant acted contrarily to the constitution?  Or is the Public Servant immune to such mistakes?</p>

<p>My specific interest is in relation to Australian Law for a Federal Government Department, although I am interested in the generic question.</p>

<p>Since you say this question is general, I'll give an example from the U.S. (However, I explain below that some of your assumptions about how constitutions and legislation interact are flawed.)</p>

<p>In <em>Heien v. North Carolina</em>, the US Supreme Court ruled that seizures (such as a traffic stop) can be justified by reasonable mistakes of law.</p>

<p>The Fourth Amendment prohibits <em>unreasonable</em> searches and seizures. The court emphasised that the "touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness".</p>

<p>Because the officer's mistake of law was reasonable, there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment.</p>

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<p>The above was an example where a mistake of law was claimed by the defendant to result in a constitutional violation.</p>

<p>In general, constitutions do not say how particular statutes are to be interpreted. They may put constraints on what legislation may be passed. Courts may default to interpret statutes in ways that do not conflict with the constitution when there are several reasonable interpretations.</p>

<p>But, just because somebody in the executive branch erroneously interprets a statute does not mean that the constitution is implicated.</p>

<p>If a person seeking some benefit is being asked to comply with a condition that is not required by statute, they may sue to get the courts to make a holding about how to interpret the statute. Before jumping to that extreme measure, there might be some lower-cost ways to challenge the individual public servant's interpretation (talking to a supervisor, a within-department appeal process, tribunals, etc.)</p>

<p>I don't know about Australia, but I'll answer for the United States.</p>

<p>If a public servant, acting in the capacity of his office, tells you to do something, and it's wrong, the public servant is usually shielded from the consequences, unless the errant recommendation was "egregiously" wrong. (A public servant cannot get away with telling you to commit "murder," either literally or figuratively.)</p>

<p>On the other hand, <em>you</em> are shielded (if you save the documentation or other evidence) from the consequences of your resulting actions, if you relied in good faith on the public servant's errant (but good faith) recommendation, to your detriment.</p>
