← Legal Studies syllabus

SALegal Studies

Topic 3: Law-Making

4 dot points across 4 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How do courts and parliament shape each other's law-making?

Explain the relationship between courts and parliament in making law, including how each influences and limits the other.
How parliament and courts each make law, the ways they influence and check one another, codification and abrogation, and why parliament is the supreme law-maker.
6 min answer →

Who makes law besides parliament?

Explain what delegated legislation is, why parliament uses it, and how it is controlled.
What delegated legislation is, why parliament delegates law-making power to other bodies, the forms it takes, and the controls that keep it accountable.
6 min answer →

How do courts make and apply law?

Explain how courts make law through precedent and how they interpret statutes.
How courts make common law through the doctrine of precedent and how they interpret the words of statutes, including binding precedent, ratio decidendi and the rules of interpretation.
8 min answer →

How does a bill become an Act of Parliament?

Explain how parliament makes statute law, including the stages a bill passes through to become an Act.
How parliament makes statute law: the role of the two houses and the Crown, and the stages a bill passes through from first reading to royal assent.
7 min answer →