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, however, students with an overseas law qualification may be required or permitted to take this course. The course provides an introduction to the main features of the Australian legal system in the areas of constitutional, administrative and commercial law. It is the foundation course for non-lawyers enrolling in the postgraduate program in government and commercial law and a prerequisite for many of the courses in the Government and Commercial law stream. The subject matter of this course centres on those parts of constitutional, administrative and commercial law that are essential for equipping students with the necessary knowledge and skills to tackle more specialised subjects in these areas.

Special emphasis is also placed on developing students' capacity to apply basic legal principles in problem solving settings. In this context, the course integrates an understanding of legal principles and legal methods and includes an introduction to the library (electronic resources, research techniques, borrowing arrangements, librarians, etc), legal writing (including style, referencing etc), and legal problem solving (drawing on case discussions and research). It also covers the basic features of the common law system, the nature and role of precedent and legislation and interpretive rules.

A student who has successfully completed this course should be able to:

• demonstrate a broad understanding of the Australian legal system
• understand the central concepts in constitutional, administrative and commercial law including:
  • the federal division of powers, the role of the High Court, the nature and limitations upon Commonwealth legislative powers, grounds for constitutional invalidity, the structure of the executive and the nature of judicial power,
  • a brief history of administrative law system, accountability in an administrative state, the framework for administrative law review of government decision-making, methods of administrative review and the role of subordinate legislation
  • the main forms of business entities and an introduction to contract law including formation of contract, contractual terms and termination and breach of contract
• demonstrate understanding of the role of law and modes of legal thinking
• understand the central elements of legal reasoning
• be competent to access and use legal materials

There will be four pieces of assessment in this course. One piece of assessment will relate to each of the areas of Constitutional, Administrative and Commercial Law and may take the form of an essay, problem-style question or case analysis (each no more that 1500 words each). The final piece of assessment will be a research task relating to Ausstralia's common law system using library and internet resources (maximum 500 words).

The course will be taught in the Summer Session over 34 hours spread over a 6 week period. It will also expect private study time.

In the Winter Session the course will be taught over five full days.

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Cook, Creyke, Geddes, Hamer, Laying Down the Law, LexisNexis, (7th ed) 2009.

Internet access