The decision of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia in the appeal against the order of the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission was handed down on Friday 10 March 2017.
The Court unanimously upheld the approach taken by the 2016 Commission.
The appeal concerned the interpretation of section 77 of the Constitution Act 1934 (SA). The question was whether the Commission was entitled to use the “tolerance” in section 77 to assist in achieving the aims of section 83 of the Constitution Act. The Full Court confirmed that the tolerance was available to be used for that purpose and that doing so did not undermine the “one vote one value” principle.
The full text of the decision can be read on Austlii under the title of Martin v Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission.
The Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission was established to review and carry out periodic redistributions of the boundaries of South Australia’s House of Assembly electoral districts
