Posted by Jeremy Kriewaldt on October 27, 2005 at 01:37:09 from 202.138.212.58 user JeremyKriewaldt.
In Reply to: Re: Legal Hierarchy. was Re: Ethics in AR posted by Charles on October 26, 2005 at 13:07:22:
The Australian hierarchy of courts is quite complex, because of the federal nature of Australia (with all of the former colonies federating to form the Commonwealth of Australia but retaining their separate existence as legal systems in the form of States (a bit like the States of the USA and the Provinces of Canada)).
Briefly, however, each State has its own court system each of which is crowned by a Supreme Court (which in many States also has a Court of Appeal). There are also Federal Courts dealing with federal legal matters (although, unlike the USA, most of the State Courts also have federal jurisdiction vested in them). The head Federal Court (established under the Constitution of Australia) is the High Court of Australia.
Originally appeals could be brought to the High Court from any Federal Court or any State Supreme Court and there was an appeal from the High Court to the Privy Council. Also originally there was an appeal from the State Supreme Courts bypassing the High Court, directly to the Privy Council.
The first change was the elimination of appeals from the High Court to the Privy Council. This meant there were two ultimate courts of appeal (not a comfortable position). Then finally in 1986 all Privy Council appeals from Australia were phased out.
This is a brief thumbnail sketch and some allowance must be made for some inaccuracies arising from that, but I think you get the drift.