Wednesday, May 22, 2013

An answer and WIIW

The answer to my odd question in my last post "when would something that is "Supreme" not be at the top of the pile?"
The answer is contained in the piccie. Supreme is not at the top of the pile when it is a supreme court in Oz.
 
So how does it come to be in Oz that a "High Court" is above a "Supreme Court"?

Well Oz has no less than nine "supreme courts" and one High Court of Australia which sits above them.
The reason: six of the Supreme Courts were once the highest court in each of the colonies that federated in 1901 to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Now each of those is the highest court of the states formed from those colonies (eg Victoria, the other three are the "supreme" courts of three of our territories.)
Oz (like the USA and Germany) is a federal state and that odd hierarchy of courts is an artefact of that history.

Now to this week's what is it Wednesday: what on Earth do you think this is?
 

5 comments:

Linda G. said...

Those are nuts and bolts on a ... something or another. Hard to say what.

mshatch said...

Big giant screws would be my guess but that is just a guess...

Old Kitty said...

Scaffolding held by giant screws??

Take care
x

Susan Flett Swiderski said...

Looks like a couple of safety-wired nuts. (Says my better half...)

Pretty tricky about the "supreme" question, but if ya think about it, since you're in the land down under, nothing there is "on top".

Jai Joshi said...

They look like bolts screwed into something?