SACE Legal Studies exam 2026Exam: Thu 12 Nov · SACE Board timetable

Law made by courts through judicial decisions, also called case law or judge-made law. It is built on the doctrine of precedent, where the reasoning in earlier cases guides later decisions.

Reception is the process by which a colony takes on the law of the colonising country. In Australia, English common law and relevant English statutes were received as the foundation of the colonial legal system.

A remedy is the relief a court orders to address a civil wrong. The most common is damages (a payment of money to compensate the plaintiff); others include injunctions and orders for specific performance.

The rule of law is the principle that all people and institutions, including the government, are subject to and accountable under laws that are publicly known, applied equally and enforced by independent courts.

Dualism is the principle that international law and domestic law are separate systems. In Australia a treaty creates obligations between nations when ratified, but it has no direct effect in domestic law until parliament passes legislation to implement it.

An express right is a right written explicitly into the text of the Constitution. Australia has only about five, and several are limited in scope, for example applying only to Commonwealth action rather than the states.

The separation of powers is the division of government into legislative, executive and judicial branches, so that no single body holds all power and each branch can check the others.

Where a valid Commonwealth law and a valid state law conflict, section 109 of the Constitution provides that the Commonwealth law prevails and the state law is invalid to the extent of the inconsistency. This is a key way the Commonwealth's reach expands in practice.

An enabling Act (or parent Act) is the Act of Parliament that delegates law-making power to another body and defines the scope of that power. Any delegated legislation must stay within the boundaries set by its enabling Act.

Abrogation is when parliament passes a statute that cancels or overrides a principle of common law made by the courts. Because statute prevails over common law, parliament can abrogate a court decision it disagrees with, provided it acts within its constitutional power.

The ratio decidendi is the legal reasoning essential to the decision; this is the part that can be binding. Obiter dicta are comments made by the way that are not essential to the decision; they are only persuasive, not binding.

Royal assent is the formal approval of a bill by the Crown's representative. It is the final step that turns a bill into an Act of Parliament. In modern practice assent is a formality, but without it the bill does not become law.

A pressure group is an organisation that seeks to influence government policy and law on an issue without seeking to govern itself. Examples include environmental, civil liberties and industry groups that lobby for or against reform.

Legal aid is government-funded legal assistance for people who cannot afford a lawyer, usually subject to means and merit tests. In South Australia it is provided by the Legal Services Commission of South Australia for eligible matters.

Legal representation is the service of having a qualified lawyer advise on a case and argue it in court. In the adversarial system, where each party is responsible for presenting its own case, representation can be decisive in the outcome.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) refers to methods of resolving disputes without a full court trial, ranging from negotiation and mediation, where the parties keep control of the outcome, to arbitration, where a third party makes a binding decision.