Legal System

Australian Law

Also Known As Law of Australia

Common Law Family

Australian law is substantially derived from the English legal system, which superseded Indigenous Australian customary law as the country was colonized. Since federation, Australia has operated as a common law jurisdiction under a written constitution adopted in 1901, one notable for containing no bill of rights, so that individual protections have instead been built up through judicial interpretation of the constitution's other provisions. The system is federal: the national Parliament exercises only the specific powers enumerated in the Constitution, while the states retain a broader residual legislative authority, and the High Court of Australia sits at the apex of the judiciary with final say over the interpretation of the law. Full legal independence from Britain came only in 1986, when the Australia Act ended the possibility of legislation being enacted for Australia at Britain's request and abolished remaining appeals to the Privy Council, formalizing a divergence between Australian and English common law that had already been under way for decades.

Australia's legal system combines a written constitution, unwritten constitutional conventions, statutes, regulations and a judicially developed common law, with its institutions and traditions substantially derived from English law, which superseded Indigenous Australian customary law during colonization. Australia is a common law jurisdiction and its common law is the same across every state and territory, operating under a federal constitution that gives the national parliament power to legislate with overriding force on a set list of subjects while the states keep their own courts and parliaments and hold plenary power of their own. The High Court is Australia's apex court, hearing appeals from every other court in the country and holding original jurisdiction of its own; Indigenous Australian systems of customary law were deliberately disregarded by the colonial legal system and have only been recognized as legally important by Australian courts to a limited degree in the post colonial era. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts

Origin Year

1901 2

Example Jurisdictions

Australia 2

Example Jurisdictions

Australia. 2

Primary Source of Law

A written constitution, unwritten constitutional conventions, statutes and regulations, together with the judicially determined common law. 2

Classification

Legal Family

Common Law 1

Australian Law

65 entries

Role

Nationality or Jurisdiction

Field of Law

Gender

Court Served On

Connections

In Legal Family

Common Law

In Legal System

Common Law

Legal-system family: Common Law Family, following the CIA World Factbook and JuriGlobe comparative-law family classification.

Includes

Melbourne Beth Din

Source Melbourne Beth Din (Wikipedia)

Michael Blakeney

Source Wikidata: Michael Blakeney

Michael McHugh

Source Michael McHugh (Wikipedia)

Michelle Gordon

Source Wikidata: Michelle Gordon

Additional Source Michelle Gordon (Wikipedia)Wikipedia category: Australian solicitors

Murray Gleeson

Source Murray Gleeson (Wikipedia)

Native Title Act 1993 (Australia)

Ninian Stephen

Source Wikidata: Ninian Stephen

Additional Source Ninian Stephen (Wikipedia)Wikipedia category: Australian judges of United Nations courts and tribunals

Owen Dixon

Source Owen Dixon (Wikipedia)

Patrick Keane

Source Patrick Keane (Wikipedia)

Percy Spender

Source Percy Spender (Wikipedia)

Philip Alston

Source Philip Alston (Wikipedia)

Racial Discrimination Act 1975

Source Racial Discrimination Act 1975, Wikipedia

Robert Beech-Jones

Source Robert Beech-Jones (Wikipedia)

Robert French

Source Wikidata: Robert French

Additional Source Robert French (Wikipedia)Wikipedia category: Judges of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory

Roma Mitchell

Source Roma Mitchell (Wikipedia)

Ronald Wilson

Source Ronald Wilson (Wikipedia)

Samuel Griffith

Source Samuel Griffith (Wikipedia)

Simon Steward

Source Simon Steward (Wikipedia)

Susan Crennan

Source Susan Crennan (Wikipedia)

Susan Kiefel

Source Wikipedia: Susan Kiefel

Victor Windeyer

Source Victor Windeyer (Wikipedia)

Virginia Bell

Source Virginia Bell (judge) (Wikipedia)

Wilfred Fullagar

Source Wilfred Fullagar (Wikipedia)

William Deane

Source William Deane (Wikipedia)

William Gummow

Source William Gummow (Wikipedia)

William Owen

Source William Owen (judge, born 1899) (Wikipedia)

Showing 51 to 76 of 76 in Includes, page 2 of 2.

In the Other Atlases

Found In

Australia

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Sources

1. Wikipedia: Australian legal system

Australia is a common-law jurisdiction, its court system having originated in the common law system of English law
Australia is a common-law jurisdiction
In Group: Common Law in Australasia and the Pacific, Introduction, sentence 1
The legal system of Australia has multiple forms.

Adrian Knox

Albert Piddington

Anthony Gates

Anthony Mason

Cassandra Goldie

Charles Powers

Chris Baker

Cyril Walsh

Daryl Dawson

Dorothy Shea (Librarian)

Douglas Menzies

Dudley Williams

Dyson Heydon

Edmund Barton

Edward McTiernan

Frank Gavan Duffy

Frank Kitto

Garfield Barwick

Geoffrey Nettle

George Rich

Georgie Dent

Gerard Brennan

H. B. Higgins

H. V. Evatt

Harry Gibbs

Hayden Starke

Hilary Charlesworth

Ian Callinan

Isaac Isaacs

Jacqueline Gleeson

James Edelman

Jayne Jagot

John Finnis

John Latham

John Toohey

Keith Aickin

Kenneth Hayne

Kenneth Jacobs

Laurence Street

Lionel Murphy

Mary Gaudron

Mary Tenison Woods