Interpretation of Constitutional Conventions in Cabinet Manuals and Court Decisions in Selected Westminster Systems
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Interpretation of Constitutional Conventions in Cabinet Manuals and Court Decisions in Selected Westminster Systems This thesis investigates the evolution of constitutional conventions in Westminster systems, focusing on the growing use of Cabinet Manuals as a tool for codifying these unwritten rules. While these manuals aim to enhance clarity and transparency, they also raise concerns about potentially undermining the flexibility that has historically been a defining characteristic of conventions. The thesis examines this tension by comparing four Westminster systems: Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. These countries offer a rich comparative framework, allowing for analysis of both codified and uncodified constitutions, revealing nuanced perspectives on the interplay between written and unwritten constitutional norms. Furthermore, the thesis analyzes the ways in which Cabinet Manuals and court decisions articulate and interpret constitutional conventions in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. It seeks to understand whether these interpretations enhance clarity or risk undermining the inherent flexibility of these unwritten rules. The thesis will explore the following research questions: How do Cabinet Manuals articulate and interpret constitutional...
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.024 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.009 | 0.026 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.012 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".