Seminar 1 Flashcards
What is law and its role in society?
Law is a set of rights and obligations that a community uses to regulate its affairs. It protects a person from the arbitrary actions of others and provides remedies when the the rights of the person are infringed.
What is the difference between the law and ethics & morality
At its simplest, ethics and morality deals with the right and wrong of individuals and society. It is normal for the law to showcase aspects of ethics and morality. However, ethics and morality sometimes do not reflect the law and might even exceed the law.
What makes up the legal system?
The legal system can be broken down into civil law systems and common law systems.
Civil law systems originated from the roman empire. Laws in this system are systematically codified into codes.
Countries such as Japan, Thailand, Korea, Italy, Spain use civil law systems
Common law systems originated from medieval England. It was said to have been created following the conquest of England by King Willian of Normandy in 1066, who then sent itinerant justices to the villages to study the decision making process used by the village heads.Common law includes stare decisi or binding precedent.
Equity as a principle
Equity emphasis justice, fairness and principles of conscience.
Binding Precedent
Binding precedent is when a court is expected to follow the previous decisions and to provide an opinion that can be used to direct future problems or relationship. AKA stare decisis which means to standby things that have been settled.
BP is used when the previous decision came from a court that is above the current court in the court hierachy as well as if the case is substantially similar to a previous case and as such require previous decisions.
Court Hierachy
CHDM
Court of Appeal
High Court
District Court
Magistrate Court
CH belong to the supreme courts where as DM belong to the state courts
Applying the doctrine of precedent
The decisions of a higher court is always binding over the decisions of lower courts in the court hierachy.
Courts are not binded by their own previous decisions but may be of persuasive authority
Courts are not binded by the decisions of another hierachy but may be of persuasive authority
Criminal Law, where can it. be found, purpose
Criminal law is a legislature that deal with certain acts that are considered harmful to the society. These offences include crimes such as rape, theft. Criminal law legislature can be found in the penal code which was enacted by the british in 1871 when Singapore was still a colony. Criminal law’s main purpose is to punish offenders through fines, imprisonment or the death penalty
Who is involved in criminal law
Public Prosecutor
Accused
Criminal act
Intention to commit the crime
Civil law and its purpose
Civil Law covers all other laws that are not covered by criminal law. While the purpose of criminal law is to punish the offenders, the purpose of civil law is to compensate innocent or injured victims.
Who is involved in civil law
Plaintiff (Accusor)
Defendant (The accused)
Can a person be double charged under criminal law and civil law?
Yes. Lets take for example a drunk driver. Knocking down someone while driving would be considered criminal because he was drink driving. However, he would also be charged under civil law because of the incident would have resulted in the loss of livelihood for the victim and would require compensation.
What is statue law
Statute law, also known as legislature, are made/enacted by the parliament and are written down. Statute laws are important sources of law for business and commercial laws because it provides a speedier method of updating business and commercial laws to cope with the rapid changes.
What is case law
Case law refers to the decisions made by judges for the cases presented in front of the court. The decisions can be made on a case by case model but it can be overturned by the parliament who holds more power over the courts. Usually, the judges claim that they are just following precedence but are creating new laws.
What is the Singapore Constitution
Purpose of the Singapore Constitution
Fundamental document that is the supreme law of our land. Any law that is not consistent with the Singapore constitution is considered to be voided. The constitution safeguards the liberties and rights of individuals while also laying the system of our government.
Purpose:
Lawmaking
Financial control
critical/ inquisitorial function