[Itadakimasu!]

Hi all, I'm a law student in Australia. What does the law and justice mean to you, personally and how do you view the legal system in the country you live in?

Background info: Australia's common law system was inherited the UK. Unlike Continental European Civil Law (which derived mainly from Rome), British common law is founded on the concept of precedence and case law. Although Parliament is and always will be the primary legislative function, under common law judges (should they choose to be activist rather than formalist/legalist) have considerable discretion in interpreting the law.

I can say without shame that I'm proud to be living under a system where the judiciary is independent (to a large extent) of the executive, with a system that is adaptive to social change whilst ensuring that fundamental principles that have evolved into some of our basic rights, such as habeas corpus, remain.

[Maxim Litvinov]

I'm Aussie too, with family in the profession.

Here are my uninformed thoughts...

[1] Australia had a great legal aid system as far as I can gather, but it's been sorely underfunded over the last couple of decades. As such, lack of opportunity for the disadvantaged to have their day in court with reputable people representing them is probably the single biggest problem in the system.
[2] The other major problem would seem to be politicians and "law and order" campaigning at state elections. People with too little understanding of sentencing can always find some sentence to rail against, we can always stick one more graffiti artist in jail and we can always decide that we need to be 'tough on drugs', but all these policies are to our detriment.
[3] Politicians seem less and less principled when it comes to ethical matters and the law and also seem more ready that ever before to demonstrate a contempt for legal processes. This is despite the fact that half of them are ex-lawyers anyhow. Examples of this would include the ALP's mixed message on capital punishment in the election campaign and Kevin Andrews' shameful show of complete disregard for the judicial system in cancelling Haneef's visa. One can also remember back to the persecution of Michael Kirby by Heffernan, who still retains his position of power despite those disgusting allegations.
[4] I would say Kirby is right that more than ever before we need judges that aren't black-and-white law types and are picked impartially. The recent decision on the use of the Constitution's corporations power particularly disturbs me in this respect - it seems it was due to a rather 'technical' rather than 'implied' meaning being taken.
[5] The present laws as regarding terrorism sorely need changing. At the moment, the government of the day can basically just use stooge judges (ie. pick judges it knows will be sympathetic to granting them power to continually detain and persecute citizens) to get authority to detain and bug ordinary people. There was no need for these changes. The issue of 'control orders' is also extremely dodgy.
[6] Considering the direction we're moving in, I support Fraser (?) and whoever else (Kirby? Ackland?) has been calling for an Australian Bill of Rights. Ten years ago and perhaps it seemed excessive, but not now.
[7] To top it off, the government's position in *fixing* the trial process for David Hicks, after around 5 years of inaction while an Australian citizen was languishing without charge or trial in a foreign jail, was inexcusable.
[8] Oh, and while I come to think of it, the government's use of arbitrary or silly legislation to do stuff like (a) board the Tampa (b) excise our own land from our own migration act (c) play all sorts of dirty tricks (like stopping flights) to prevent the provision of legal assistance to potential asylum seekers is also something I heartily disapprove of.

[Itadakimasu!]

You've raised some good issues that show that our legal system isn't perfect.

One of the most ridiculous problems is the nexus between law and order politics and justice. Almost every election in NSW, both sides attempt to outdo each other in raising sentences. Though 90% of people agree with this what they fail to see is that this hardly stops crime, it simply over crowds our prisons.

The current High Court (all bar 1 having been chosen by the Howard Government) is filled with legalist sentiment, so the likelihood of rather activist interpretation of contentious legislation is very slim...

all in all though, its a good system, it just needs to be tended to

[War Angel]

The laws are mostly alright, really. Some are silly, but that's really what laws are like everywhere.

The punishment, though... that's way low. A guy can kill his wife and burn his children, and he'll be out in 18 years (no kidding). People get 10-20 years for multiple cases of murder, 8 years for manslaughter under severe consequences (i.e, drunk driving and running over people, etc). There's little to no punishment for offenses such as robbery, thieving, breaking and entering, assault... you testify against someone, hoping you'd never see them again, and 6 months later they're knocking at your door.