LAW1112: Public Law and Statutory Interpretation

Overall, I thought PLSI was pretty good. It is the sister subject of FoL, so there is a bit of crossover between the subjects. However, PLSI focuses more on evaluating and critical thinking, and teaches statutory interpretation in much greater depth. The library workshops, whilst a bit dry, were quite useful – especially those which covered legal research. However, the statutory interpretation workshops in weeks 9-11 weren’t my favourite, and were too long in my opinion. Not many students enjoy PLSI, and whilst some of the content is dry, a lot of it is pretty important (especially the statutory interpretation stuff).

- 60%. The exam is open book and students are given 2 hours writing time and 30 minutes reading/noting time. Before the exam, students are given a piece of legislation which the statutory interpretation part of the exam will be based on. For this part of the exam, you are required to present arguments for how various parts of the legislation should be interpreted (for both sides), in light of the problem provided in the exam. This part of the exam is worth the most marks, so you should dedicate the majority of your time to it. The other part of the exam assesses your understanding of topic 4 (the Judiciary) and topic 5 (the interrelationship of the three branches in the context of human rights). Students are given two questions (one assessing each topic) and are required to provide extended responses to the questions (like the Moodle Test in week 4).

My lecturer was Oyiela Litaba who I thought was quite good. I found her lectures pretty engaging and she was very approachable, friendly, and was happy to meet up with students before assessment tasks. I did hear negative things about the other lecturers, however, especially one who notoriously concluded a lecture because the students weren’t answering (or couldn’t answer) her questions.

- 10%. This is a multiple-choice, untimed quiz completed in Week 10. It assesses your ability to research legislation and case law, and write effectively – so basically the skills and content covered in the library workshops. You shouldn’t find the quiz very hard, and if you attended the library workshops, you should be able to get 100%.

I don’t think so – however, the practice problems looked at in the statutory interpretation workshops in weeks 9-11 are similar to the problem provided in the exam.

3.75 out of 5

Yes and no. Lectures are recorded (with screen capture, I believe),

– 30%. This is a one hour, open-book Moodle test which students complete in week 4 (in their own time). There are three questions, each worth 10 marks, and the test assesses the content taught in topic 1 (introduction to Australian Government), topic 2 (Parliament) and topic 3 (Executive). For each question, you basically write an extended response, and are required to use cases, legislation, etc. as evidence. The test isn’t excessively difficult; however, you need to type, think critically and evaluate whatever you’re discussing very quickly – which is probably the hardest part of the test.

I purchase the prescribed textbook ‘Australian Public Law’ and found it quite useful for topics 1-5. However, I wouldn’t say the textbook is essential, because a fair bit of information on the topics is provided on Moodle. Although that being said, I would still recommend students try and get a copy of the textbook because it definitely is helpful.

2x 1.5 hour lectures in weeks 1-8 and week 12.
1x 1.5 hour workshop in weeks 9-11.
3x 1 hour library workshops over the semester.

2017, Semester 2.