For newly arrived migrants who develop English language skills: what is the law? Australian Law for Newcomers is a legal education resource. It provides basic information on general legal issues and gives suggestions on how to get free legal aid. Some law firms offer a low-cost service that allows their clients to prepare their own legal documents by purchasing and downloading document templates online. Before using these services, make sure you understand the terms of sale. If you are not sure if the document template is right for you, contact the company. FindLaw Australia is a service provided by Thomson Reuters Australia. It contains legal news and articles organized by area of expertise, as well as directories of law firms and individual lawyers. PLEASE NOTE: The Australian Pro Bono Centre is not responsible for the accuracy or suitability of any information, products or services provided by the organisations listed on this page. The Australasian Legal Information Institute (Austlii) provides access to Australian primary and secondary legal information.
It contains most laws and court decisions in full text. It is a narrative guide to Australian legal research, written by law librarians Nicholas Pengelley and Sue Milne and published in its current revised form on the LLRX website.com in January 2014. It contains hyperlinks to the sources mentioned. The Family Court of Australia is a specialised federal court. Its website provides detailed information, including court listings, recent decisions and practical advice. Links are provided to AustLII`s Australian Family Court Case Database and (including AustLII) to the legislation under which the court operates. Full-text publications include the Family Court Bulletin, documents and reports on many aspects of family law, and the 1997/98 and subsequent Annual Reports. Lawlex is one of the services offered by SAI Global, a commercial provider of legal and regulatory information. It has some free items and some subscription-based items. All users can browse or search Australian Commonwealth and state/territory legislation and view the full text both in operation and at various times, as provided by the official publisher of the respective government.
In some cases, links to Hansard debates are provided for legislation. Subscribers have access to additional information such as details on the status of draft laws, entry into force, changes since the last consolidation and a summary of all changes since entry into force. Other SAI subscription services include regulatory newsfeeds and Safety, Health and Environment (SH&E) Monitor. The English legal system was introduced to Australia through colonization. Upon their arrival in Australia, the colonists declared that the laws of England should apply immediately to all colonized lands. [8] This statement was asserted, citing a legal fiction, that the Australian continent was terra nullius; that is, land that belonged to no one, because it was believed that the Aborigines who already inhabited the continent were not coherently organized to conclude a treaty with a single representation of their peoples. [9] Some laws are more important than others in that they establish enduring principles and legal frameworks that affect much of the Australian community. Key federal registry laws include: Australia`s ten territories are home to more than half a million Australians. Each territory has different legal origins and a different relationship with the Australian government. Select the domain you are interested in for more details on its laws and governance: AustLII, the website of the Australasian Legal Information Institute, provides full-text databases of most Australian decisions and laws, both from the Commonwealth of Australia (i.e. the federal government) and from the states and territories, and contains links to New Zealand documents on the NZLII website. Also included are treaties to which Australia has acceded and access to the full text of nearly a hundred Australian legal journals.
For more information on how Australia acquired its outer territories – i.e. all territories except ACT, NT and the Jervis Bay Territory – see Alan Kerr`s book A Federation In These Seas. Full legislative independence was eventually established by the Australia Act 1986, which was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It eliminated the possibility of legislating with the consent and request of a dominion and applied to both the states and the Commonwealth. It also provided for the complete abolition of appeals to the Privy Council by any Australian court. The Australia Act represents an important symbolic break with Great Britain, marked by the visit of Queen Elizabeth II. in Australia to sign the law in her legally distinct capacity as Queen of Australia. Lawpath is an example that offers online legal document templates for sale in a variety of areas, including wills, powers of attorney, claim letters, and simple business documents. Paid legal advice to adapt the documentation to the buyer`s situation is also available.
Lawpath also offers referrals to other law firms that provide legal advice at a fixed fee. Prior to colonization, the only legal systems that existed in Australia were the various customary law systems of Indigenous Australians. Indigenous legal systems were deliberately ignored by the colonial legal system and were only partially recognized as legally important by Australian courts in the post-colonial era. [5] The Law and Justice Foundation is an independent organization dedicated to improving access to justice for the people of New South Wales. Its website provides a portal for legislation, case law and judicial information covering all of Australia, not just New South Wales. The sections «Legislation and Parliament» and «Judgments and Courts» complement AustLII in that there are links to other data sources. There are also links to decisions of some quasi-judicial bodies that are not included in the AustLII. The following online legal information sources may be helpful: The Federal Court of Justice is a superior court with broad jurisdiction, both at trial and on appeal, over Australian federal law. The resources made available to practitioners on its website include practice notes, administrative notices, forms, hearing lists, statutes and detailed information on court records in each Australian state. Judgments from February 1977 onwards are provided via links to the AustLII website. The judgments published last week are available on the Court`s website. Information on general legal issues is available in a wide range of Community languages.
The Australian Treaty Database (ATD) on the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website provides access to Australian contracts by subject, type and/or country or date. Links to pages on the status of multilateral treaties are provided, and there is information on contracts in general and the conclusion of contracts. This guide, compiled by Robin Gardner of the University of Melbourne Library, describes free legal resources for Australian legal research (legislation, case law and secondary sources) and includes links to research guides on Australian law and foreign/international/comparative law. A section on historical resources is also included. The ANU library provides access to a number of legal databases. The following list is very selective and covers only the most important sources of case law and legislation. For a more complete list of law-related databases, click here or visit the Jurisprudence, Journal Articles and Legislation tabs for more databases covering this type of information. Queensland judgments are published on the Queensland Supreme Court Library (SCLQ) website, new ones are added within 24 hours.
The records date back to 1992 for the judgments of the Supreme Court (Court of Appeal), 2000 for the Supreme Court (Trial Chamber) and the District Court, and 2006 for the Magistrates Court. Other services offered by SCLQ to legal practitioners include the UCPR Bulletin, which lists cases where the Uniform Code of Civil Procedure has been taken into account; the Queensland Legal Updater`s current weekly outreach service; and biographical information on the Queensland court system: Supreme Court, District Court and Magistrates. The Statutes of Queensland (1962 reprints) are available in PDF format. Although this guide from the Library of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of London) makes some reference to the library`s own holdings, it provides a useful analysis of Australian constitutional and legal history, as well as the administration of justice at the Commonwealth and federal levels.