LibGuides: VCE Legal Studies Units 1 & 2: Home

News sources

The Age newspaper
The Age replica provides students and staff with access to The Age newspaper replica of the printed newspaper. The archive commences in January 2017 through to the latest daily edition.
Echo Online
This is an excellent source to search for articles about Criminal Law or Civil Law. Think about the appropriate terms to use for your searches. The video tutorial below explains how to use Echo Online. If you require further assistance with Echo Online, ask a member of the Library staff for help.

The Courts
A court is a body formed to adjudicate on criminal charges and civil disputes and to determine the best path to justice. Courts are funded by governments and overseen by judges and magistrates. There are many different courts in Australia, both in State and Federal jurisdictions. Courts are organised in court hierarchies, where both appeals and the doctrine of precedent can function. Courts also serve as law-making bodies. Courts examine the facts of each case but also engage in statutory interpretation and both setting and following precedents. Court decisions and rulings together form our common law. These lawgovpol.com topic pages contain concise summaries of Australian courts and their operation.

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An Introduction to Law
Laws are rules, regulations and restrictions that apply to all members of society. Laws define how people should behave or conduct themselves, and provide sanctions and deterrents against improper and destructive behaviour. Laws help to organise our societies, maintain order, ensure our safety and prevent infringements of our rights. Without laws, societies would descend into lawlessness, anarchy and violence. In a democratic society, laws are created by representatives of the people (parliaments) and independent judges and magistrates (courts). There are two types of laws: criminal law, which deals with offences against people, property and morality, and civil law, which deals with disputes between different parties. The lawgovpol.com topic pages offer a brief introduction to laws.

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Australian Institute of Criminology: Criminal Justice System
ABC Law, Crime and Justice
ABC website with news stories related to the Law, Crime and Justice
Glossary legal terms
From the Federal Court Library
Governing Australia: three levels of law-making in Australia
From the Parliamentary Education Office. Includes a glossary and other useful links in the menu. The information can be downloaded as PDF files; look for the Fact Sheets.
Hot topics: Legal issues in plain language
Clearly explains how laws are made, influences on our legal system, basic differences between Criminal Law and Civil Law.
Infosheet 7: Making laws
From Parliament of Australia describing how a Commonwealth law is made.
Law and Justice
From Victorian Government Online. Resources on different areas of the law, legislation and legislative bodies and law reform can be discovered on Victoria Online.
The Law Handbook
A practical guide to the law in Victoria from the Fitzroy Legal Service.
Victorian Law Foundation
A up-to-date collection of authoritative resources collated for VCE Legal Studies. Use the menu to navigate to Unit 1 and Unit 2 specific material.
Victorian Law Reform Commission
Outlines the work of the Law Reform Commission, including a downloadable PDF documents, case studies and videos.
Victorian Legislation and Parliamentary documents
Links to Bills under consideration and House Documents of the Parliament of Victoria, and Victorian Acts and Statutory Rules.

Law Society of Western Australia Fact sheet: Characteristics of an effective law
"Francis Burt Law Education Programme". Law Society of Western Australia. N.p., 2017. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.

Rule of Law Principles
There is no single agreed definition of the rule of law. However, there is a basic core definition that has near universal acceptance. As Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Walker, has written in his defining work on the rule of law in Australia: ‘…most of the content of the rule of law can be summed up in two points: (1) that the people (including, one should add, the government) should be ruled by the law and obey it and (2) that the law should be such that people will be able (and, one should add, willing) to be guided by it.’
– Geoffrey de Q. Walker, The rule of law: foundation of constitutional democracy, (1st Ed., 1988).