Australian Court System Essay

The Australian Court System

The Australian court system is structured as a hierarchy, meaning that some courts have more power than others. In this hierarchy there are two sections of courts; the state courts such as the supreme court, county court, court of appeal, magistrates court and specialised courts like children’s court for example and tribunals like VCAT all of these are set up under state legislation. The second section being federal courts such as the High court which comes under commonwealth legislation. So, depending on the crime committed and how serious or not it is, different courts in the hierarchy will deal with different cases.

The Federal Courts

There are three main divisions that sit at the federal court level:

The

Including appeals from Victorian courts and tribunals. The supreme court is split into two divisions’ the trail division and the court of appeal. The court of appeal is the highest division of the supreme court. They review and revise a lower courts decision on a matter to determine whether the trail was conducted fairly and if the law was applied correctly. They hear criminal and cases that was decided in the trail division of the supreme court and county court, but some civil cases can also come from the Magistrates’ court and from the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). The decision from the court of appeal may result in a retrial of the case or a decision that there wasn’t an error from the lower court’s decision, so their final position still stands. The trail division sits above the county court and below the court of appeal. They hear the most serious indictable offence, which include murder, manslaughter, treason and other major criminal matters. Their civil jurisdiction gives the ability to hear claims for an unlimited amount of damages above