by Christopher Enright & Clare Cappa
A person entering the study of law is faced with the fact that there are numerous sources of law in Australia. This is a task in itself but is made harder by the fact that Australia possesses sixteen legal systems, being the Commomwealth, six states and nine territories. The purpose of this book is to explain the nature of the sources of law used in these legal systems.
Statutes enacted by legislature, generally called a parliament, are the major type of law. Statutes are the means by which governments can intervene directly and spontaneously into the lives of their citizens. In addition, some statutes authorise another level of legislation by delegating power to some official to make subordinate legislation (also called secondary legislation, subsidiary legislation and more commonly delegated legislation).
Courts interpret statute. In addition, in former times courts were themselves a legislature in that they made common law rules as the occasion required. Nowadays the courts largely leave this social intervention to parliament but may modify a common law rule or in some cases abolish it where it no longer serves a useful function.
While statutes and common law are the main types of law there are some special types of law. These include conventions of the constitution, laws for the conduct of parliament and international law.
448 pages softcover
About the Author
Christopher Enright is a chartered accountant, barrister and solicitor. He has lectured in law at several universities. He specialises in legal method.
The purpose of this book is to state the major principles of constitutional law in a simple and straightforward manner. It is designed as a first reader in the subject prior to attacking the intricacies of federal constitutional law later in a law course.
This book describes a structured approach to legal research consisting of 12 steps. The idea is to present a step by step approach to legal research that is as foolproof as human endeavour can make it.
Vast numbers of statutes rule our lives. Many of them are not easy to read. Parts of some are almost impossible to read. This book sets out some ways of drafting statutes that makes them easier to read.
This book starts from the ground up to explain the logical structure and function of a privative clause. It then considers in a critical way the reasoning of the High Court. It points out aspects that need further attention because the court’s reasoning is unsatisfactory. It also points out relevant legal considerations that the court has so far overlooked.
The skill of interpreting a statute is important for one good reason – the outcome of a case commonly enough depends on how a court interprets an ambiguous provision in a statute. Yet despite the importance of interpreting statutes there have been no serious attempts so far to describe an effective method for performing the task.
Lawyers tend to be skills averse. They absorb some way of performing various tasks with law but without explicit or proper instruction. This lessens their ability to learn law as students and to work with law as legal practitioners. This book aims to rectify this problem.
Complaints about legal writing, like billable hours, just keep mounting. This book seeks to solve the problem of lack of understanding by a two-stranded approach.
Little attention is paid in law schools to the reasoning processes for proving facts. This book seeks to rectify this problem. It contains a four-step model for proving facts.
This book explains the task necessary for trial advocacy for a case based on a dispute of facts.
The primary purpose of this book is to provide law students with the text of constitutional legislation and documents. Law students need these in several types of courses. The obvious courses are introductory law courses as well as public law courses on constitutional law, administrative law and human rights.
The aim of this book is to provide an array of exercises that assist students in understanding the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia.
This book explains how to answers a problem question. It does this by providing a model. Naturally this model incorporates advice on how to perform the four fundamental skills that are needed to answer a problem question.
Legal education pays little attention to ambiguity. This leads to neglect of two important aspects of ambiguity.
This book explains an effective method for interpreting the object and meaning of statutes of law.
This book explains an effective method for efficiently organising the elements of law and litigation, and describes how these are related to the facts and consequences of a case.
Proving facts in court is an uncertain business. This book describes a model for proof of facts to throw some light on the subject and to make the task more systematic.
Common law is a messy beast. This book seeks first to analyse and explains it and enable readers to work with common laww more effectively.
This book covers the essentials of clear writing techniques and teaches skills on how to plan for and perform well in examinations.