law 107 key concepts

1. Feudalim-a system of economic and social organisation as well as a system of land ownership based upon a formal social hierarchy and dated back to the Dark Ages.
   The ruler owned' all the land and granted land to people in return for the payment of taxes, the provision of services, a share of their crops, or, if necessary, engagement in military service. In the feudal hierarchy; everyone had rights and obligations. The ruler was responsible for protecting the people and maintaining peace. The legal obligations to the ruler were formalised with the Norman Conquest in 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy, was crowned King William I and assumed ultimate title to all land in England. This system developed in England and formed the basis of its land law; criminal legal system and taxation system. It also forms the basis of Australian law in these areas--the Crown ultimately owns all the land, our criminal system is based on an action by the state against the wrongdoer, and there is an entrenched power for the government to impose taxes.

2. Law as an dutonomons discipline the way law developed in England involved a separation of law from religion, which differed from the situation in other parts of the world in which the Church could make law (canon law or papal law) or where the religious text formed the basis of the law (as in some Islamic countries). Instead, law was seen as an autonomous discipline-it might be influenced by morality, religion or politics, but it was analytically separate from them.

3. Common Itt legal system --England developed a common law legal system while the rest of the European continent developed a civil law legal system. The common law system is what we inherited. It is an organic concept of law that can develop through a line of cases (establishing precedent) and can grow and shift to take into account changes in society.

4. Precedent--a doctrine whereby courts follow similar previous decisions. It emerged organically when royal judges travelled to rural areas in England to dispense justice, and over time chose to defer to each other's decisions in doing so. Today, the doctrine of precedent requires that the decisions of a court on a matter of law are binding on all courts that are lower in the judicial hierarchy.

5. Equity a separate body of law that aims to correct, supplement and soften the effect of the more rigid common law. It is a creature of the common law legal system that was developed in the Court of Chancery in the Middle Ages, at a time when highlyintricate common law procedures led to significant delays in dispute resolution, and the strict application of the law through a system of writs as causes of action. This created some harsh and unfair outcomes, which Equity law seeks to remedy. Equity is a key feature of Australia's law and legal system today, and students complete an entire subject on it in law school.

6. Due process--the notion that an individual should be considered innocent until proven guilty, and that guilt should be proved using proper legal procedures, not some arbitrary process. While this originated in the Magna Carta with respect to criminal law for the purpose of protecting the individual's legal rights and liberties against abuses by the ruler or the state, it also applies in Australia today to civil proceedings.
   The principle of due process ensures fairness and transparency to parties in civil disputes.

7. Juries- juries initially developed in England in the form of local people who were responsible for bringing suspected wrongdoers to court, and who could inform the royal courts on the facts of the case and local customs on point. Australia inherited the jury system and it continues to play a major role in our criminal justice system. Today, a jury usually consists of 12 people in a criminal trial and between four and twelve people in a civil trial, depending on the jurisdiction and the nature of the matter. Jurors are selected at random from the electoral roll. Jurors must make decisions on questions of fact. All states and territories allow majority verdicts in which a decision can be made where there is agreement by 10 or 11 of the jurors. In a criminal trial, chey must return a verdict of guilty' or 'not guilty' of the crime charged in the indictment, but they do not determine criminal sentencing. In civil cases, the jury must make a decision as to liability and may also determine the amount of damages awarded. There is a Commonwealth constitutional right to a jury for serious federal offences (s 80) and most states and territories provide for a trial by jury in their higher courts (although defendants may elect for a judge-only trial). (See Chapter 4 for more on juries.)

8. Rule of law- government should rule through law, and not through the exercise of arbitrary power by individuals. The laws should be applied equally to all people, including the government (see Chapter 3).

9. Importince of procedural Law- law should be applied following established procedures for the instigation and process of a legal matter. This makes for a fair contest.
   Procedural law is as important as the substantive law itself, and an otherwise good civil daim or criminal prosecution may fail if they do not follow the correct legal procedures. (See Chapter 4 on the difference between procedural and substantive law.)

10. Parliament--this is an arm of government that developed in England as a law-making body, which shares power with the monarch, comprising elected representatives. In Australia, the Federal Parliament consists of the Queen, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

11. Sepiration of powers--power should be distributed between the three independent arms of government: the legislature (parliament), the executive and the judicature.
    Under this doctrine, the power to make, interpret and enforce the law is not concentrated solely in one particular branch of government.

12. Parliamentary sovereignty-although power is separately allocated between the parliament, the executive and the judicature, the parliament is supreme over the executive and the judicature except where it provides otherwise.

13. Independent judiciary- judges should be independent of the other arms of government so that their decisions are made freely, according to law. To achieve this independence, judges have security of tenure; they cannot be removed from their position if their decisions are unpopular to the government of the day, and they also receive fixed salaries, so that their income is not affected by the government's views on the decisions they make.

14. Process of legislation murking draft laws are introduced into parliament and debated. passed and then assented to by she monarch or their representative. In Australia's constitutional monarchy, the Queen's representative in the Commonwealth jurisdiction is the Governor-General, in the states it is the Governor, and in the territories, it is the Administrator.

15. Rules of statutory interpretation--the English courts developed guidelines for interpreting parliament's statutes, which were applied in Australia. See Chapter 10 for a discussion of the traditional common law approaches to statutory interpretation.

16. Political parties parliament comprises representatives of political parties, according t.

17. their relative power, based upon their success in free elections.

18. Cabinet--this was, historically, an informal body of ministers that advised the English monarch. It developed into a self-sustaining, key body of ministers who develop government policy and rely on the support of parliament to enact it.

19. Prime Minister--again, an informal office in English history, where one member of Cabinet emerged as the leader, and was then, and is now, referred to as the 'prime

20. Representative government-this is the notion that the government should be representative of the people, through free and fair elections in which people have the opportunity to elect their representatives to parliament.

21. Responsible goverument-the government is responsible to the people for its actions.

These are she key principles from English legal and constitutional history shat have been applied in Australia. The following section describes how that took place.