Study sheet: Australian Law and Order

📋 Course Outline

1. Purposes and Nature of Laws
2. Statutory Law-Making
3. Common Law and Conflicts
4. Civil and Criminal Law
5. Courts, Proof and Punishment
6. Customary Law
7. Young People and Police

📖 1. Purposes and Nature of Laws

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Law : a system of binding rules created and enforced by government that applies to everyone and is knowable

★ Must-know

• The purposes of laws include:
  • maintaining order
  • preventing chaos
  • protecting rights
  • preventing abuse
  • resolving disputes
  • ensuring fairness
  • promoting justice
  • enforcing social values

Further detail

• Without laws, society may experience:

  • immediate chaos
  • loss of safety
  • economic collapse
  • no trade
  • a return to survival mode
  • the rise of the strongest

• Outdated laws can become “zombie laws”, meaning that they remain valid but nobody uses them.

💡 Memory Hook

O-R-F: order, rights, fairness

📖 2. Statutory Law-Making

★ Must-know

• A bill becomes an Act of Parliament when it is introduced and voted on in the House of Representatives, debated and voted on by the Senate, and signed by the Governor-General through royal assent.

• Parliament can change an existing Act by passing a new bill that adds, removes or changes part of the Act.

Further detail

• The House of Representatives discusses a bill and considers it in detail before voting on it in its third and final reading.

💡 Memory Hook

House of Representatives → Senate → Governor-General

📖 3. Common Law and Conflicts

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Common law : law made by judges in court through decisions that develop legal precedents

★ Must-know

• Courts make common law by:
  • developing precedent
  • interpreting legislation
  • filling gaps in the law

📌 The Constitution overrides both statutes and common law, and a statute overrides common law when the two conflict.

Further detail

📌 When a statute is unclear or two statutes clash, statutory interpretation allows a judge to resolve the dispute using the existing statute law.

• Common law has the advantages of:
  • fairness
  • consistency
  • predictability
  • adaptation

💡 Memory Hook

Constitution overrules statutes, and statutes overrule common law

📖 4. Civil and Criminal Law

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Civil law : handles non-criminal disputes between private parties and aims to resolve disputes rather than punish people
• Criminal law : deals with criminal offences prosecuted by the state against a defendant

★ Must-know

• Examples of civil claims include:
  • personal injury
  • property damage
  • family law
  • contract disputes
  • tort claims
  • property disputes
  • debt recovery
  • class actions

Further detail

• Examples of criminal offences include:
  • violent crimes
  • property crimes
  • drug offences
  • statutory crimes
  • financial crimes

💡 Memory Hook

Civil law resolves private disputes; criminal law addresses offences

📖 5. Courts, Proof and Punishment

★ Must-know

📌 In a civil case, the plaintiff bears the burden of proof and must show that their claim is more likely than not to be true, while criminal prosecution requires proof beyond reasonable doubt.

• Criminal cases may be heard in the Magistrates Court for the least serious offences, the District Court for serious indictable offences, or the Supreme Court for the most extreme offences.

• Possible criminal punishments include:

  • a fine
  • imprisonment
  • supervision

📌 A crime has two elements: actus reus is the physical action that breaks the law, while mens rea is the mental intent or guilty mind involved in committing the wrongful act.

Further detail

• Civil cases may be heard in the Magistrates Court for minor claims, the District Court for mid-range claims, or the Supreme Court for high-value or complex claims.

• Examples of Magistrates Court offences include:

  • minor traffic offences
  • minor property damage
  • low-level drug offences

• Examples include:

  • armed robbery
  • serious assaults
  • drug supply
  • manslaughter
  • murder
  • major drug trafficking

💡 Memory Hook

Magistrates → District → Supreme

📖 6. Customary Law

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Customary law : a system of unwritten legal rules that develops organically within a community

★ Must-know

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander customary law is underpinned by the Dreaming and the relationship between people and the land.

Further detail

• Examples of customary laws concern:

  • land ownership
  • kinship
  • family relationships
  • dispute resolution

• Some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander customary laws require people to avoid certain family members and limit contact in order to maintain respect for social relationships.

💡 Memory Hook

People, kinship and land connected through the Dreaming

📖 7. Young People and Police

★ Must-know

• Young people have a right to silence when questioned by police and have mandatory information rights.

📌 Young people must not lie when interacting with police.

📌 Young people must follow directions given by police when those directions are lawful.

Further detail

• The course asks students to know the age at which people under 18 become criminally responsible for their actions, but the source does not provide the age.

📌 Following the law is a broader responsibility than following a single lawful police direction because it applies to conduct generally.

💡 Memory Hook

Young people have rights when questioned but must follow lawful directions

📊 Synthesis Tables

Civil and Criminal Law Comparison

Dimension	Civil law	Criminal law
Parties	Plaintiff and defendant	Prosecution and defendant
Purpose	Resolve disputes	Punish criminal offences
Burden and standard of proof	Plaintiff; more likely than not	Prosecution; beyond reasonable doubt
Possible outcome	Remedies or orders	Punishments