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Abstract:
Recently a German professor has advocated the adoption in this country of the German style of legal problem solving. Occasionally a German author attempts to civilise the common-law world using what is put forward as a more rational approach. But with such endeavours is usually associated a certain lack of self-critical reflection. In this instance an Australian author is able to draw on his studies in Germany to rectify the omission. He shows that the problem-solving method in question conveys a false picture of the nature of legal problem solving and of the law itself, while not possessing the advantages claimed for it.

Jurisprudence, legal problem solving, German problem solving method

Abstract:
2008 will see the 150th anniversary of the invention of South Australia's revolutionary Torrens system of lands title registration. it quickly spread from its home to the other Australian colonies. it was introduced in Victoria in October 1862, four-and-a-half years after its adoption in South Australia. While the adoption of the Torrens system in Victoria may, from this historial distance, seem rapid and thus inevitable, it was not without considerable effort that the proponents of the Torrens system in Victoria were able to overcome the tenacious opposition to its introduction from certain lawyers. This article traces the seven stages in the adoption of Torrens in Victoria and shows that the Torrens system succeeded because it was truly the people's cause in Victoria, as it had been in its South Australian home.

Torrens system, legal history, land title registration

Abstract:
The Governor of Victoria, having objected to two Bills passed by Parliament in the 1850s, received advice from the colonial government to refuse assent to them. These are the only occasions on which the Royal assent has been refused locally in Victoria, and one of the very few such incidents in Australian history. One of the Bills would have implied a statement that UK law of the day was incompatible with religious liberty, and thus raised sectarian and Imperial complications; the other was a constitutional amendment passed without following the prescribed procedure. This article reconstructs the events and the public reaction, as far as possible; considers whether the Governor acted rightly; and concludes that the Crown should refuse assent if advised to do so by its Ministers, despite occasional views to the contrary.

Refusal, Royal Assent, Victoria, Parliament

Abstract:
In this essay, I undertake a review of Justice Callinan's record in the cases in the law of torts in which he participated during his tenure of judicial office. My survey will encompass almost all of the torts cases in which his Honour sat, and concentrate on those in which he wrote a judgment of his own.

Justice Ian Callinan, High Court of Australia, Cases in Torts Law, Review of Judicial Tenure

Abstract:
In German criminal law, intention is the label used not only for cases of knowledge and desire; it also includes cases of what the common law would call recklessness. German criminal law calls its approximation of recklessness dolus eventualis. It is on that concept that the article concentrates. After a brief review of the historical development of the German concept of intention, the author shows that dolus eventualis consists of two components: the cognitive element, which (as in the common law) considers the state of the accused's knowledge that the offence may occur, and a volitional or dispositional element which is unknown to the common law. The author concludes that the volitional or dispositional element is not plausible, and that in any harmonization of concepts of intention in the criminal law of the European countries such an element should not be adopted.

Abstract:
There has recently been a minor research and publishing boom in the field of refusals of royal assent to Bills in Australia. When in the throes of finalising my own contribution to this outburst of scholarship, I discovered that the figurehead German Federal President had just refused his assent to two government Bills passed by the Bundestag (the lower house of Parliament). In the two cases, which occurred in October and December 2006, the Federal President acted because he thought the proposed statute unconstitutional. Further research revealed that these were the seventh and eighth refusals of assent by a Federal President against the government's wishes since the foundation of the Federal Republic in 1949. As a result, there is a long-running academic debate in Germany about the circumstances in which the figurehead Federal President may refuse assent. Some scholars even permit the Federal President to assess every proposed law to ensure that it complies with the constitutional charter of rights, while others take a more restrictive view and confine his task to errors of parliamentary procedure and/or restrictions on law-making power other than those to be found in the charter of rights.

Bills, Legislation, Australia, Germany, Constitutional Law, Federal Government, Parliamentary Practice