Objectives:
This course is designed for students enrolling in the postgraduate program who do not have an LLB. Lawyers are not permitted to take this course. The course will provide an introduction to the main features of the legal system that provide the structure for Australian government. Although the course is taught in three separate modules, the issues and themes in the course will be integrated, with an emphasis on the contemporary public law and commercial law setting for the discharge of governmental functions.

This is the foundation course for non-lawyers enrolling in the postgraduate program in government and commercial law. Students completing this course will have acquired sufficient knowledge and skills to enable to enrol them in the other more specialist courses in government and commercial law.

Content:

Module 1: Constitutional Law

• the forms of business entity - sole traders, partnerships and corporations
• the advantages and disadvantages of the choice of business entity
• an introduction to the law of contract
• formation of contract
• contractual terms
• termination and breach of contract
• interaction between the law of contract and statutory regulation - the Trade Practices Act.

Module 3: Administrative Law

• the history and development of the Australian administrative law system
• accountability in an administrative state
• the administrative law framework for review of government decision-making
• methods of administrative review - the different role played by courts, tribunals, Ombudsmen and investigatory agencies
• the criteria for lawful government decision-making - an introduction
• control of government information practices - freedom of information, privacy and reasoned decision-making.

At the conclusion of this course students should be able to:

• demonstrate understanding of core legal principles in each of the three modules -- constitutional law, commercial law and administrative law
• extract legal rules from cases and legislation studied and use these to reason to legal conclusions on a given set of facts
• engage in critical discussion around key debates and controversies emerging from the material studied
• identify criteria for evaluating the legal principles studied and comment critically on those principles

Students must rely on the Approved Assessment which will be posted to the course homepage on the ANU Law website, prior to the commencement of the course.

Each of the three modules will be assessed separately. In past years, this has involved a mixture of problem-style questions (i.e. applying legal principles to a set of facts) and essay questions (requiring critical analysis).

52 Contact Hours (intensive delivery)

Click here for the 2010 timetable

LAWS8153 Introduction to Legal Reasoning and Research (non-lawyers)

Click here for fee and census date information