Civics & Citizenship
All About Laws
Statutory law
Statutory law or otherwise known as statute law is legislation written and passed by members of
parliament.
A bill is put forward by parliament to change a law or create a new law. For a bill to be passed it
must have a majority vote in both houses of Parliament. A bill becomes a law after it has been
approved and passed by the members of the Lower House before then being passed by the
Upper House and finally signed off by the Governor-General.
An example of a statutory law is if we have a dog that bites a person and we already were aware
that the dog was vicious or a dangerous dog breed, under statutory law we would be liable for
the injury caused to the person by the dog.
Common law
Common law are laws that are decided and made by judges rather than statutes that are binding guides to be
used for decisions at another time.
Common law is not statutory, it is not legislation but rather “wisdom from the past for the future.” It is made
and established by judges through written opinions to become law that is binding for decisions that are made
at a latter time in relation to the court system. Common law is useful as it fills in the gaps in legislative law that
can happen as time and society changes.
An example of Common Law is the rights of ‘finders keepers.” If someone found a valuable item in a shopping
centre they are liable to hand it to the management to try and locate the owner. However if all attempts to locate
the owner of the item have been exhausted then the person who found the valuable item in the chopping centre
is entitled to “finders rights” under Common Law.
Criminal law
Criminal law are laws put in place to protect society and punish those
who break the laws. They are laws to govern what is right and wrong
in society and the consequences that are enforced when someone
commits a crime and breaks the law.
Criminal law is used differently from other forms of law in that it is not
the victim of the crime who takes the offender the court but rather the
state. An individual who commits a criminal act is treated as an act of
crime against the state. This is where law enforcement officials, police
and prosecutors become involved to see the person who committed the
crime to be charged, prosecuted and then sentenced for their crime
against the victim of the crime.
An example of Criminal law is a murder case. The person who
committed the crime has wrongfully taken someone’s life. This is
considered an offence against the state and the person is charged and
prosecuted by representatives of law enforcement and the courts. For
example: The State vs Joe Smith.
Civil law
Civil law is laws that protect our property and rights as citizens.
Civil law deals with non criminal offences. It has been put in place to allow people to bring
matters involving personal property and personal offences against one an other to be brought
before the courts in order to seek a solution to their problem. The person who is filing the civil
law suit against the person who is in offence to them is called the plaintiff and the person or
organisation being prosecuted is called the defendant.
Civil law is used in circumstances where a person feels that they have been wronged either
through property disputes, wrongful dismissal or a dispute with wages with an employer, or even
for a case of defamation of someone’s reputation and the plaintiff seeks to take the defendant to
court to seek compensation for any of these reasons.
An example of this could be if a woman worked for a particular company and the company found
out that she was pregnant and fired her for no particular reason. This is an example of wrongful
dismissal of an employee. She is protected by Civil law rights and can take the matter to court to
seek compensation or to fight to get her job back.
Customary law
Customary law is the guidelines of behaviour that has been decided to be made into law by the
Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and used in the court system exclusively when
dealing with this ethnic group of people.
Customary law is not the same as statute law and is not always clearly written down legislation to
follow in the courts. In some ways it is more like Common Law in that it is written by Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander elders who use these laws when dealing with spiritual, tribal and
customary offences within the Aboriginal communities. Customary laws differ from tribe to tribe
and are not all applied the in the same way, and depend on the customs, beliefs and language of the
individual tribe groups. Many times both criminal law and customary law are used in cases involving
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders within the courts.
An example of customary law is if a person committed an offence against the community or against
an individual within the community, the offender will often by punished by spearing through the leg
to bring justice to the offence and give a strong reminder to the offender to not repeat the offence
again every time they see the scar on their leg.
Similarities and Differences in Laws
Similarities: Differences:
- Common goal to uphold law and order. - Not all laws are legislation
- Guidelines for the court system to act on what is considered - Customary laws are not clearly written down
right or wrong. - Criminal law is brought to the court and prosecuted by the state.
- Enforce consequences on offenders - Civil laws are used for non-criminal offences
- Give people their rights to justice - Common laws are decided by the wisdom of judges
- Guidelines for the people to know what is right or wrong - Customary laws are decided by the wisdom of Aboriginal elders
behaviour.
Most interesting Law
In my opinion the most interesting law that I learnt about was common law.
I always thought that all laws were legislative and I didn’t realise until researching
for this PowerPoint presentation that common law is decided by judges and
becomes legally binding in order to cover the gaps in statutory law that may not
accurately cover a crime or offence because of changes in time or society or
because of the complexity of the case.
I think that this wisdom from judges who can identify these gaps is very important
to make sure that justice is always fair and always served.
To me it seems like a very common sense common law.
Reference Page:
• meaning of statutory law australia - Search (bing.com)
• Types of law - Parliamentary Education Office (peo.gov.au)
• What is the difference between statute and common law? – TimeBase
• What is common law Australia? (legalknowledgebase.com)
• Jacaranda Civics & Citizenship Alive 8 (learnon.com.au)
• Jacaranda Civics & Citizenship Alive 8 (learnon.com.au)
Pictures:
• statutory law - Bing images
• common law - Bing images
• customary law wallpaper - Search (bing.com)
• Criminal Cartoon - Bing images
• law words - Bing images
