The Brief Edition 2 2024

MULS Semester 2 Events

Editor’s Welcome

Welcome back. The year that we call 2024 is passing. The theme for the second issue of The Brief is ‘Ceci n’est pas une loi’.

René Magritte was not a Belgian artist born in 1898. René Magritte is a collection of letters — some vowels and some consonants arranged in pretty little lines. These letters were claimed as a name by an artist of the early 20th century. This artist would go on to make the startling discovery that images were treacherous, that representations were not reality, and that his drawing of a pipe was, in fact, but a poor approximation. René Magritte was not René Magritte.

René Magritte was also not Saint Augustine of Hippo, the episcopised philosopher who observed that an unjust law is not a law. Figuring out what the law actually is poses a near-insurmountable challenge to even the most seasoned thinkers — they are fickle things, forever evading definition and attempts at domestication. So, in honour of Messieurs Magritte and of Hippo, we shall join them in the quest to figure out what the law is not.

Thankfully, many things are not the law. Ideas, arguments, and the 2002 AU Ford Falcon belong to this (admittedly broad) category. What isn’t a law? What shouldn’t be a law? Do people make up things that are not lawful? Our student contributors will explore all of these things, and more! Is the law in our DNA (p.14)? Can we really know the truth of any case (p.16)? Can we unlearn the law (p.18)? And can our brains actually handle the law (p.20)?

To help us through this topic, we’ve enlisted the help of some gracious guests: Ms Georgia Cam, a tutor of Macquarie Law School (and once a contributor to these very pages), proffers some much-needed advice on how to keep your head in law school, and the Reverend Dr Gregory Morgan, DPhil (Ox) talks about why we should actually be here in the first place.

In addition to all of these, our regular corners return with their regularly scheduled programming. It’s all the latest news: Mr Lehrmann, educational malpractice, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and the UN.

This edition has been a team effort, and I would like to express my thanks to the people who keep the presses running. The writers and the subeditors provide and refine their work on the newsfloor, Lachlan Cicurel and Serena Olatona ensure that every T is crossed and each I is dotted, Nathan Li crafts each page like a sculptor before a work of baroque art, and my bosses — the MULS President Mikaela Mariano and Vice-President (Publications) Jordan Lau — keep the lights on with their unceasing cash flow.

To all of you, our readers, we hope that this issue of The Brief is fit to print! Let us dive into the lawsn’t that are!

Leo Chang Editor-in-Chief, The Brief

President’s Welcome

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the second edition of The Brief, an intriguing read with roots in philosophy, history, and French! As present and future advocates determined to refine our critical thinking skills while fulfilling our intellectual curiosity and wonder, this edition epitomises what students truly consider when studying or thinking about the law — what is law, and what is not? With articles from various backgrounds questioning different branches of law, it is an honour to appreciate all of the writers’ works and to understand what is on their minds.

In this edition, we delve into a diverse array of topics that challenge our understanding of legal principles and practices. Our contributors have explored the intersections of law with ethics, politics, and society, providing a comprehensive view of how legal concepts are applied in various contexts. From the philosophical underpinnings of legal systems to the practical implications of legislative decisions, each article offers a unique perspective that encourages us to think deeply about the role of law in our lives.

One of the recurring themes in this edition is the notion of legal ambiguity. Many of our writers have highlighted how the law, despite its structured framework, often contains loopholes and grey areas that can be interpreted in multiple ways. This inherent flexibility in legal interpretation can lead to both justice and injustice, depending on how the law is applied. By examining these ambiguities, our contributors remind us of the importance of critical analysis and continual questioning in the pursuit of a just legal system.

I would like to extend my thanks to those who contributed to this publication, even if it was just a small part! Special thanks to Leo, Jordan, the Deputy Editors, and the subcommittee who helped in the creation of this publication! Especially to Nathan Li, who has been with us for more than a decade, designing this publication! I appreciate every single one of you for your efforts in creating this publication while balancing work and university commitments. Your passion for the law and dedication to this publication do not go unnoticed. Thank you for making The Brief an enriching and thought-provoking read.

Mikaela Mariano

President, Macquarie

University Law Society

muls.org

Edition 2, June 2024 (Volume 30)

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Leo Chang

DEPUTY EDITORS Serena Olatona, Lachlan Cicurel DESIGNER Nathan Li

WRITERS

Aron Bakos, Bradley Cagauan, Connor Chandler, Leo Chang, Emma Horgan, Fadi Khousho, Joel Karanikas, Mantaj Kaur, Rebekka Krause, Anya Maclure, Mikaela Mariano, Serena Olatona, Emma Reading, BS, Rajiv Sharndil, Amy Scott, Lex Takhar

SUBEDITORS

Nina Bar, Rachel Justic, Massimo Orlando, Anna Queja, Charlie Stoneman, Yoong Tran, Luke Waked, Peta Walton

SPECIAL THANKS

Georgia Cam, LDC, EH, Jordan Lau, Mikaela Mariano, Dr Gregory Morgan

IMAGES

Shuttershock or Wikimedia Commons, unless otherwise stated.

The print edition of The Brief is published triannually by the Macquarie University Law Society, Sydney, Australia. Visit our website at muls.org

DISCLAIMER

All views expressed herein are those of the individual authors and do not reflect, in any way, the attitude of the Macquarie University Law Society. The Macquarie University Law Society does not accept any responsibility for the losses flowing from the publication of material in The Brief.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF PEOPLE AND COUNTRY

The Brief acknowledges and pays respect to the Wattamattagal people of the Darug nation, the traditional custodians of the land where the campus of Macquarie University is located.

A Jury’s Integrity and the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 (ACT)

Mantaj Kaur

The ACT recently passed the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 to crack down on juror misconduct following a mistrial in the high-profile Bruce Lehrmann case of 2022. The proposed bill sought to protect the integrity of jury trials after a juror on the Lehrmann case conducted independent academic research and brought this material into the jury room. This occurred after Chief Justice Lucy McCallum had warned the jury (on 17 occasions) to avoid conducting their own research. The juror’s misconduct caused a mistrial of the case. However, this was not illegal in the ACT at that time, and so McCallum CJ could not sanction the juror.

The ACT has now proposed laws to criminalise similar misconduct under the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2023. If legislated, the bill will amend the Juries Act 1967 to insert the offence of an improper inquiry by a juror about matters relevant to the trial. This amendment will permit up to 2 years imprisonment for jurors who have made an unauthorised inquiry into a trial. This includes internet searches, bringing external research into the jury room, asking others questions, conducting experiments, and asking others to make an inquiry on the juror’s behalf.

Furthermore, ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury has proposed an additional amendment bill in response to the findings of the board of inquiry into the Lehrmann mistrial. The board of inquiry found that former Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, attempted to prevent the disclosure of a report to the defence team. This report claimed that police had attempted to pressure Drumgold into not prosecuting Lehrmann, possibly due to a close relationship between senior police officers and the defence. In response, Rattenbury proposed legislative amendments which require the prosecution to disclose all available evidence to uphold the integrity of the ACT’s criminal law system.

Attorney-General Rattenbury supports the proposed changes to the Juries Act 1967 regarding juror misconduct. He has stated that these amendments will be helpful in preventing retrials and hung juries, thereby strengthening and improving the efficiency of the ACT’s judicial system. According to Rattenbury, it is incredibly problematic for jurors to bring outside research into the jury room as such information has not been accepted by the court and the parties to the case have not examined the information. This can risk the integrity of the jury and threaten the defendant’s access to a fair trial. Similarly, Michael Kukulies-Smith, a chair of the ACT’s Law Society, affirmed the importance of clearly outlining the obligations of jurors and the consequences of their misconduct. He argued that criminalising juror misconduct will fortify the integrity of trials, especially regarding high-profile matters.

Evidently, these proposed amendments highlight the importance of upholding the integrity of jurors and trials in ensuring that our judicial system remains robust. The Lehrmann mistrial shone light onto the gaps in the ACT’s legislation and demonstrated how these gaps could undermine our courts. The passage of the proposed bill aims to eliminate these gaps, showing other states and territories the importance of quickly evolving the law as issues arise.

Unacceptable Risks and the Bail and Crimes Amendment Bill 2024 (NSW)

Emma Horgan

In March 2024, the New South Wales parliament passed the Bail and Crimes Amendment Bill 2024 (NSW) which resulted in amendments to the Bail Act 2013 (NSW) (‘Bail Act’), particularly s 22C. S 22C, titled ‘Temporary limitation on bail for certain young persons in relation to certain offences’, introduces a temporary additional bail test for offenders aged 14 to 18 years old who have committed a serious break-andenter offence or a motor vehicle theft while out on bail for the same offence. S 22C introduces a new bail test where a bail authority must have a ‘high degree of confidence’ that the young offender will not commit any further offences while on bail. If this confidence is not met, bail must not be granted. This demonstrates a departure from the previous New South Wales bail test.

The Previous Bail Test

The current bail test for adults and the previous test for young offenders was a two-step test involving the ‘show[ing of] cause’ and ‘unacceptable risk’. Firstly, the requirement to show the cause asks the accused to explain why their detention is not justified. If the accused has sufficiently demonstrated this, the bail authority then applies the ‘unacceptable risk’ test. This test allows the bail authority to consider the risks of the accused under s 18 of the Bail Act. They will often consider the accused’s background, nature of the offence, the strength of the prosecution’s case, history of compliance or non-compliance, and many other contributing factors. If there is an unacceptable risk identified, bail will be refused. However, if no unacceptable risk is identified, the bail authority will consider any conditions that must be imposed to address any bail concerns in compliance with s 20A. However, the ‘show cause’ test is not applied to young offenders who have committed serious offences while on bail. Instead, bail authorities will be responsible for applying the ‘high confidence’ and ‘unacceptable risk’ test and determining whether it has been satisfied in each case.

Concerns

S 22C continues to receive criticism from the Law Society of New South Wales and the New South Wales Legal Aid and Human Rights body, despite being subject to a 12 month sunset clause. The Law Society of NSW considers s 22C to be ‘too wide’ and ‘a more punitive approach than that taken for adults for equivalent offenders’. As the ‘high confidence’ test is untested, there are many concerns about the possibility of inconsistent application affecting young offenders’ access to justice and fairness. Attorney-General Michael Daley as clarified that the higher confidence test is intended to set an appropriately higher bar. The Court does not need to be certain of the risk of further offence, nor does it need to act as a predictive authority for reoffence. Hopefully, within the next twelve months the NSW courts will provide a clear definition and assess the effectiveness of the ‘high confidence’ test in comparison to the ‘show cause’ and ‘unacceptable risk’ tests. With luck, the implementation of new strict bail laws in New South Wales will lead to a decrease in young people reoffending allowing for a safer community.

A Veto on Justice

Atrocities and the United Nations Security Council

Amy Scott

The United Nations Security Council (SC) holds the primary responsibility for the preservation and enforcement of international peace and security. When a dispute leads to hostilities, the SC’s mandated primary concern is to bring them to a close as soon as possible. However, the legal effectiveness of the SC is impacted by a special right of the five permanent members — the right to veto. If any of the five permanent members do not agree with a proposed SC resolution or decision, the resolution or decision cannot be approved. All five have previously exercised this right to veto at one time or another. Owing to its scope, the veto has dominated SC workings because of its frequent use or threat of use. This appears to contradict article 1 of the Charter of the United Nations , where it is stated that the UN’s purpose is to maintain international peace and security by taking effective collective measures for peaceful means, in conformity with the principles of justice and international law.

The Security Council’s Mandate

The SC has five permanent Member States: the Republic of France, the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. There are also ten non-permanent Member States, each of which rotate on a two-year basis. The SC determines the existence of international threats to peace, or acts of aggression, and further calls upon disputing parties to settle matters by peaceful means, providing recommendations of adjustment or terms of settlement. The SC can also issue ceasefire directives, despatch military observers or peacekeeping forces, impose sanctions, and even authorise the use of force.

The Veto Power

The right of veto granted to the permanent members of the SC is a prerogative enshrined in the Charter. It has been described as a sine qua non (literally, without which not, or more commonly, indispensable) in the UN, as it ensures the participation of the most powerful states. The permanent members have used the veto to defend their perceived national interests or to uphold a tenet of their foreign policy. This has led to the perception among many member states that the veto (or a threat of veto) is at times abused to the detriment of international peace and security. Specifically, concerns continue to be expressed about the SC’s inability to mount effective responses to egregious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. Most recently, the calls for peace in Gaza have been delayed due to China and Russia’s use of the veto power. After extensive debate, the SC passed Resolution 2728, which called for ‘immediate ceasefire’ during the month of Ramadan. The US abstained from voting.

This raises the question: How can the ‘right to veto’ be lawful when it essentially obstructs justice and contradicts the purpose of the UN Charter, the very legal instrument that created it?

Lost to the Education System

Exclusionary Discipline and Children with Disabilities

Rajiv Sharndil

Public schools have persistently misused exclusionary discipline on students with disabilities. Exclusionary discipline refers to the temporary or permanent exclusion of a student from school because of behaviour that is perceived as negative, disobedient, or disruptive. In NSW, laws such as the Education Act 1990 (NSW) govern the use of exclusionary discipline in public schools. However, these laws disproportionately impact students with disabilities. In 2022, 17.8% of students enrolled in NSW public schools were identified as students with disabilities; among those students, 10% had been suspended. Across all jurisdictions in Australia, the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability found that students with disabilities were suspended more times on average than students without disabilities. To ensure that students with disabilities have the right to a safe, equal, and inclusive education, we must address this issue.

The disproportionate use of exclusionary discipline on students with disabilities often arises from misinformed or prejudiced views on disabilities. Educators and staff frequently misinterpret behaviours related to disabilities (such as escalated reactions) as actions intended to cause disruption. However, students with disabilities frequently express these behaviours to communicate dysregulation, frustration, or boredom, especially when they cannot clearly verbalise their feelings or regulate their emotions. Because this behaviour is not often intentional, exclusionary discipline fails to foster any positive behavioural change and fails to deter disruptive behaviour. The Royal Commission found that many schools failed to provide reasonable adjustments to students with disabilities, as well as

any support required under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth). Rather than addressing the underlying causes of this behaviour through appropriate support, schools have often responded punitively through exclusionary discipline.

Detrimental Impacts of Exclusionary Discipline

Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities affirms the right to an inclusive education for all persons with disabilities. Article 24 states that students with disabilities should be educated in a system that fosters their full development and potential without discrimination. However, exclusionary discipline denies students this right, which can severely impact their personal and social development. Suspensions can severely disrupt learning, reinforce unwanted behaviour, cause social isolation, and contribute to students feeling unfairly judged or inappropriately labelled. Expulsion, especially for students with complex behaviours, can lead to prolonged disengagement from education as parents navigate the process of re-enrolment in other schools. Moreover, past research suggests that students with disabilities who become disengaged from education are at an increased risk of early criminalisation. Therefore, the prevalent use of exclusionary discipline contributes to a disheartening reality where many parents feel effectively lost to the education system.

Recently, legislators have demonstrated a commitment to addressing this issue. In 2023, the NSW Parliament established an inquiry into the experiences of children and young people with disabilities in educational settings. Additionally, the NSW Law Reform Commission is reviewing the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) and considering the inclusion of positive obligations to prevent discrimination. However, despite this progress, the NSW Department of Education recently removed the cap on the number of suspensions permitted. Coupled with the alarming statistics highlighted in this article, there is an urgent need for NSW to assess its legal framework and commit to reform. Excluding students with disabilities should strictly be a measure of last resort.

Should we strive to live under Rousseau’s social contract?

Preamble

Every man is born free and yet everyone is in chains: This is how Jean Jacques Rousseau saw the world. A philosopher of the 18th century, Rousseau is perhaps the thinker who has most influenced the modern understanding of what is meant by politics and economics. His view on society is reflected in the idea of the social contract, a theory first proposed by Thomas Hobbes. This theory operates on the assumption that an individual’s force is limited and that people must join communities to survive.

Rousseau attempted to answer two questions about the authoritative body (the sovereign) that upholds the freedom of the people: What makes a sovereign politically legitimate? And how can people remain free under the authority of a sovereign? Regarding the legitimacy of authority, he concluded that convention is the basis of legitimate political authority, as nature and force do not provide sufficient reasons. Regarding freedom, he believed that recognising a sovereign involves surrendering certain freedoms, and that freedom can only be maintained if something valuable is provided in exchange for this sacrifice.

Rousseau described his ideal convention — the social contract — as an association that defends each person and their property with the full common force. People surrender some individual freedoms to the collective for the equivalence of safety and greater civil freedoms, and citizens gain a collective interest to help each other. The sovereign thus enforces compliance by forcing the people to obey the will of the people — the general will — and the resulting security facilitates civil freedoms. These freedoms are limited only by the general will and eliminate the effects of physical inequalities bestowed by nature.

So: Is the social contract really a contract? Further: Is a ‘general will’ within society achievable and will this protect freedoms?

Is this convention really a contract?

FOR Rebekka Krause

Rather than construing the social contract in a legal sense, Rousseau did not intend for his choice of terminology (social contract) to bring with it all requirements of a legal contract. Although the social contract falls short of the consent and certainty of terms required for legal contracts, this conception is a mischaracterisation of the relationship between the state and its citizens (the sovereign and the people). A better legal characterisation of this relationship would be a fiduciary relationship rather than a contractual one. The social contract theory forms the foundational understanding of our modern democratic society, wherein the state acts in the best interest of its citizens and provides them with certain rights in exchange for the practice of certain duties.

Nonetheless, we can still address the concerns surrounding the existence of consent and the certainty of terms, although Rousseau’s use of these terms do not fully accord with modern Australian contract law.

Regarding consent, contracts are not voidable on the basis that they are merely a poor bargain. Many contracts entered into in the course of business serve as the only option for a commercial entity’s continued existence. A contract for self-preservation does not have to lack consent entirely. This rings true when considering consent as a pragmatic choice rather than a wholly voluntary one. Furthermore, it can be argued that citizens are implicitly consenting to the social contract by participating in the democratic process (even through dissent) or even enjoying the protections afforded by their state.

Regarding the certainty of terms, the terms of the social contract are not totally ambiguous. The unknown future decisions of the state will be a product of the general will, to which citizens can contribute. To this end, a democratic state permits its citizens to shape the laws to better suit them, granting them influence over their state’s future.

AGINST Emma Reading

Consent is an essential element of any contract, so if association is the only option for self-preservation, the social contract cannot be consensual. The terms of this contract are also ambiguous as the state’s future decisions are unpredictable, further inhibiting the ability to consent. By accepting a sovereign, the citizens make a decision on behalf of subsequent generations. How-

ever, Rousseau argues that alienating one’s children exceeds the rights of paternity. As such, parents force their children to follow the law; as newborn babies are incapable of making the requisite mental efforts to actively exchange their freedoms, there is no alternative and thus no consent. For example, babies do not actively refuse to drive cars on the rational grounds that citizens may enjoy a greater standard of road safety; their parents and guardians who restrain them in the backseat where they cannot affect the steering. Paternity does not bestow rights equal to or exceeding civil responsibilities, as parents must keep their children safe until they are self-sufficient. By this reasoning, states cannot provide each generation the freedom of accepting or rejecting the social contract, which Rousseau considers necessary for the legitimacy of a sovereign to be upheld. Finally, the social contract lacks an exit option. If someone wanted to live free of a state, this would be practically impossible given the entire world is divided into states with their own laws.

Is a ‘general will’ achievable and will this protect freedoms?

FOR Rebekka Krause

How can the general will protect minority groups? Rousseau distinguishes between the general will and the will of all, recognising that there may be adverse minority interests. However, the general will is the common interest that is for the best of the community long term, transcending individual preference. Since all citizens are part of minority groups, it is in the common interest to recognise the fundamental rights of these members. The state could never harm a citizen because to harm a citizen would be to go against the general will, and thus go against itself. Although it is difficult to achieve a society where the general will is put before selfinterest, this priority cultivates solidarity in a socially oriented society where laws are made for the benefit of everyone. It has been argued The argument proposing that the general will does not always exist evident by the fact that dictatorships are preferable to anarchy in times of civil war.

However, this demonstrates that consent to enter into the social contract, as discussed previously, is in fact revocable where the social contract fails to uphold its obligations of safety and security.

Significant lessons can be learnt from Rousseau’s utopian ideas, particularly concerning our duties as citizens. Rousseau introduces his book with the statement that he feels that it is his duty as a citizen to concern and inform himself of civil matters, regardless of the insignificance of the influence he wields. This translates to the duty we all owe as citizens to participate in politics whether that be political discourse or merely informing oneself prior to voting. This is essential to a functioning democracy because only by politically contributing can we stand a chance at forming something akin to Rousseau’s general will. Merely pursuing selfish interests in this political participation is contrary to Rousseau’s concept of unity and mutual benefit. This translates to taking responsibility to advocate for needed change to benefit minorities.

AGINST Emma Reading

Rousseau’s concept of the general will fails to acknowledge the diversity of most societies and the subsequent conflicting interests, as the total alienation of freedoms in order to enter into the social contract eradicates any personal interests adverse to the collective. It is evident that the general will does exist to a certain extent, but it is not necessarily a source of goodness. Although widely held morals, such as a negative sentiment against violent crimes, are ratified in the law, many laws are controversial and do not acknowledge negatively impacted minorities. Each individual forms part of a minority, albeit to varying degrees, exacerbating the issue as each individual must thus follow laws that are particularly oppressive. As previously discussed, the general will is also only enforced with authority where those affected by it may consent by voting. However, due to the importance of the law itself, if the state’s sovereignty is threatened, (for example, in a civil war), dictatorship is preferential to anarchy. The general will is thus proven to be paradoxical: it may only be reflected in laws when voted for by the citizens, yet the citizens may not always be able to vote.

Positively Natural

The Reasons for a Reasonable Law

Aron Bakos

Law and justice have always fascinated me. I vividly remember my Year 4 teacher telling my mum that if I wanted friends, I had to stop dibber-dobbing. But my sense of justice was the primary obstacle to breaking this habit. At that time, I thought that the rules were the rules and I merely appreciated their role in our classroom; now, growing older, I find a worthwhile companion in the law. I shall attempt to, in this essay, provide an answer to the great ‘Why?’ of the law. I intend to prove that the values of law are in our human nature. This theory is not new; it has been called natural law. This school of thought stands against the philosophy of legal positivism. Legal positivism is characterised that a law is a law because it has been made valid by a legal mechanism, regardless of its moral correctness. Justice shall be a fundamental concept in this article; thus it is imperative that it be defined. Per Warren CJ, although justice can be defined differently across our society, a generally accepted definition is that justice results in an unbiased and fair outcome for all parties when resolving disputes. Do all human systems observe a similar approach and have they all arisen from similar values? How different are they at first glance, and are they really that different at all?

Ancient Greek Philosophy and Law

Let us begin with the ancient Greek approach to the law. The lasting legacy of numerous ancient Greek philosophers is felt to this day, and there is a general trend to acknowledge the importance of natural law and the values that it creates within society. Numerous philosophers subscribed to the idea that the law should not be changed haphazardly, as it was derived from human nature, which itself could not be changed. Socrates, who lived in the 5th century BC, declared himself a slave to the law, affirming the notion that laws stood over society, and at times were greater than the individual.

Specific examples can be found across the entire span of ancient Greek history. Although these individuals generally held different views and standings as to the particulars of the law, their common belief in natural law demonstrates an underlying consistency.

Consider Aristotle, who defined equity as the virtue of seeking to achieve justice for an individual. This feature is consistently found as a common attribute across many legal systems. Heraclitus claimed that law is reason and reason is universal. The law, he believed, flowed naturally from reason. Theognis considered that people have a real embedded feeling of justice, which was implanted by humans and fundamentally universal. Plato, who considered the soul a product of reason, spirit, and desire, believed that one’s view of justice was closely tied to the quality of one’s soul. He asserted that justice remedies wrongs, and that justice is the proper state of the human soul, inherent in human nature when viewed in its entirety. Similarly, when these rules were broken, punishments should achieve justice and retribution for the individual who had been wronged. In this vein, the Athenian government implemented a jury system to hear disputes known as the dicastery, which entrusted the duties of resolving disputes and achieving justice to the common man.

Although ancient Greek philosophy is only one of many schools of thought, its lasting legacy demonstrates its relevance through to the modern day. It is telling that, across a variety of opinions, views, and backgrounds, ancient Greek thinkers widely held the belief that natural law was the basis upon which laws were created. The works of Plato and Aristotle affirm the relationship between the law and human nature: a mild curiosity for now.

Sharia Law

Sharia law is an Islamic system of law which seeks to incorporate the message of the Koran into a legal system. Given the relative absence of Islam in the western world, it can be distinguished against other systems of law to further explore how natural law values can extend across

borders. Sharia law focuses on five main goals: sound religious practice, life, health, the family, and personal and communal wealth. Numerous Islamic-majority nations draw upon Sharia law as their main source of law.

The concepts of justice and values are present in Sharia Law, given that there is an explicit focus on achieving justice between parties and seeking fair outcomes, although this is couched in Islamic theological terminology. Nonetheless, inequities can prevail within Sharia law; for example, the legally unregulated operation of Sharia law when governing divorce has been criticised by various legal bodies for not guaranteeing fairness and justice. However, this does not detract from the fact that Sharia law is a self-consistent body of law that considers itself natural, given that it is bound by the teachings of the Koran. Although Sharia law seeks to achieve justice in the theological framework set out in the Koran, it shares a common ground with other legal systems. Sharia law relies upon a judge with extensive experience in Sharia and Islamic jurisprudence; such qualities are particularly emphasised. Sharia legal thought has less to do with explicit statutory interpretation; instead, it seeks to build on the overall jurisprudence and concept of Sharia in relation to Islamic theological frameworks.

Consonant with other legal systems, Sharia law renders punishment in order to create fair and just outcomes with respect to its given values and jurisprudence. Although Sharia law appears completely different to other legal systems at first glance, its philosophical justifications resemble similar systems which are based on the core concepts of justice and fairness. However, Sharia law’s dependence on Islamic theology may be a limiting factor of the Sharia in comparison to the progressive principles espoused by modern western courts. Nonetheless, this does not disprove the effectiveness of Sharia law of meting out justice if it serves a community in which the messages of the Koran have been broadly accepted.

Although the details of the concepts of justice and reason under Sharia law are distinct from western jurisprudence, there is a firm and lasting belief that outcomes should be determined by a third party. This common ground can be seen as a cross-cultural piece of evidence, demonstrating how the concept of justice and legal systems are, in fact, inherent to human nature.

Aboriginal Australian Law

Aboriginal Australian law was, prior to British colonisation, socially isolated from the rest of the world. In spite of this, the legal systems that arose within continental Australia were furnished with many of the

values and traits of other systems, despite the vast geographical distance. Aboriginal legal systems were complex, and they were passed down through the Elders and the Dreaming. In practice, Aboriginal law generally relied upon the counselling of an Elder in order to resolve disputes; a parallel can be drawn with the various other legal systems explored. Present in Aboriginal jurisprudence was the relationship between justice and retribution or payback, especially if a traditional law was violated. Aboriginal laws often mirrored our own understanding, with common moral principles being demonstrated through the criminalisation of certain actions: homicide, physical assault, and theft. Aboriginal peoples also considered the usurpation of ritual privileges and duties as violations of law. This can be directly translated to other factions of our modern law.

Despite the social isolation of Aboriginal Australians from the rest of the world, their reliance on Elders as adjudicators of the laws, punishments, and functions of their legal systems can be compared to various other systems worldwide. This, in concert with the previous case studies, seems to indicate a deep connection between human nature and a conception of justice.

Modern Australian Law

Australia’s system purports itself to be a system which seeks to achieve justice and fair outcomes for society. However, with so many laws in different areas of practice, even soft legal positivists have argued that the continuity between us and our natural law past has been extinguished, given the exclusive authority of Parliament. Such a question may be adequately responded to with an inquiry into why the parliamentarians sought to pass the bill.

Even the most boring parts (arguably) of our legal system, tax law, has a purpose with natural law values in mind. A tax income statement is a reflection of the justice attributed to proper contribution to a common statehood. To this end, even modern laws appear to be a descendant of those ancient natural law values.

Conclusion

As I examined the common grounds of these seemingly disparate systems, their differences, although truly vast, seemed a pittance in relation to their similarities. Although each system differs in the specific substance and procedure, their core concepts and values of justice, fairness, punishments, and an adjudicative third party remain consistent. In two thousand years, we haven’t been able to separate ourselves from the values stemming from the natural law; perhaps, just perhaps, they are inherent to human reason and to human nature.

The Cardinal and 24 Strained Victorians

Cardinal Pell and his Trial by Jury

Bradley Cagauan

You must not be influenced by any knowledge of child abuse allegations within the Catholic Church... it has got nothing to do with this trial. You must not scapegoat Cardinal Pell.

The 2018 mistrial and retrial of Cardinal George Pell for five child sexual offences against two choirboys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996–1997 raised significant concerns regarding juries. How could Pell receive a fair trial by jury? How could a jury set aside any prejudices against Pell in a post-Royal Commission Australia? While defendants in certain jurisdictions can opt for a trial by judge alone in high-profile cases, this is unavailable in Victoria.

Despite the costs associated with running jury trials, serious criminal trials maintain this ancient institution of direct democracy. It is an institution that guards against oppressive rulers and the people’s vindictiveness; an institution more objective than a bench of cynical judges, less susceptible to bribery than a list of expert jurors, and a protector of the presumption of innocence through unanimous verdicts.

As jurors are not lawyers, juries are limited to merely deciding questions of fact, not law. Juries have the added advantage of drawing on their combined experience and perspectives as twelve laypeople, unlike a single judge.

Despite this, trial judges are more cognisant of the fragility of juries. During the joint murder trial of Glen

...et assurément c’est un homme honorable.

McNamara and Roger Rogerson, McNamara’s barrister said that Rogerson may have ‘killed two or three people’ as a police officer. Bellew J, presiding, declared a mistrial so early the jury has yet to hear from any witnesses. R v Lehrmann collapsed after a juror did independent research, despite McCallum CJ warning the jury ‘at least 17 times’ not to do it. The fragility of juries trains trial judges to be hypervigilant around any materials that could unfairly prejudice a defendant.

‘Many, if not all, of you would have heard of Cardinal George Pell…’

To protect Pell’s prospective jurors from such materials, Kidd CJ employed a number of measures.

First, the County Court summoned a larger pool of prospective jurors than usual. For Pell’s mistrial, a prospective pool of 250 Victorians were summoned. This increased the chance of selecting jurors who were able to set aside their personal biases for or against Pell.

Second, His Honour repeated that Pell was not to be a scapegoat for any perceived failings of the Catholic Church, constantly refocusing the jury’s attention to the narrow question of whether the Crown had proven their case to the criminal standard. While it is impossible to know how closely the jurors followed this direction, appellate courts assume juries ‘by direction, observation and osmosis’ take their role extremely seriously.

Third, Kidd CJ ordered a blanket suppression order on any reporting of the trial — including the outcomes. In Victoria, suppression orders will only be

ordered if the court is highly satisfied that ‘nothing short of suppression’ is sufficient to avoid a risk of prejudice. Kidd CJ’s concern was that any outcome in Pell’s ‘Cathedral Trial’ would taint the prospective jury for his subsequent ‘Swimmers Trial’ (which related to a separate set of allegations in the 1970s). The order was made due to the growing community disquiet regarding the Catholic Church, Pell’s high-profile nature and, significantly, that the allegations were likely to ‘arouse an emotional reaction.’

In determining whether a suppression order is necessary, courts must place ‘the highest possible faith in jurors.’ Yet despite this, Kidd CJ was convinced, to the highest standard, that the jurors would not be able to put aside media coverage and that the trial would be unfairly prejudiced without the order. It reveals just how challenging it was for the system to guarantee Pell a fair trial. So, did he get one?

So Sayeth Your Foreperson, So Sayeth You All…

Unlike the first twelve — who appeared exhausted and tearful after the mistrial — the second twelve found Pell guilty of ‘an awful crime.’ Were the 12 unanimous Victorians wrong? Some said that the jury ‘passed the pub test’ while others said the jury’s decision was a ‘travesty’. But it is difficult to criticise Pell’s jurors; none of us were in that room.

The appellate courts attempted to answer that question but with some hesitation. These courts are more comfortable with questions of law: legal errors, incorrect directions, inadmissible evidence. But jury verdicts are rarely scrutinised. With good reason: juries examine the evidence, whereas appellate courts are limited to simply reading trial transcripts.

The Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal, deciding Pell’s appeal, decided to play the role of jury themselves by watching videos of the witness testimony. In a 2-1 decision, the VSCA declared the complainant a witness of truth. The High Court, to this end, criticised the VSCA: they were not a jury, they were an appellate court.

That said, the High Court did make a decision.

So Sayeth The High Court… So Sayeth You All?

The High Court said the VSCA failed to properly consider the unchallenged opportunity evidence: that is, evidence of whether Pell had a reasonable opportunity to commit the offending. Instead, the VSCA was too focused on whether they accepted the choirboy’s evidence as compelling and reliable. As such, the VSCA did not consider whether the compounding improbabilities in

the unchallenged opportunity evidence required the jury, acting rationality to doubt Pell’s guilt. Therefore, a conviction was not open for a rational jury; they must have acquitted Pell.

Despite Pell’s 7-0 acquittal, the High Court did not contest the complainant’s evidence. The High Court stated that Pell’s jurors must have had doubts of his guilt due to the opportunity evidence. If they must have had a doubt, what happened? It is possible that they — along with the prosecutors and the VSCA — did not see the opportunity issue as many journalists missed it too. It is not uncommon to miss fine issues like timing from a mass of arguments during a trial.

24 Victorians were burdened with the power to condemn or exonerate in what is perhaps the most consequential decision they can have on someone’s life. As representatives of the community, half of them were conflicted and the other half found Pell destroyed the lives of two choirboys. Then, seven justices freed Pell because the latter twelve could not have convicted him on the evidence.

But the final seven were not in that room. As such, not everyone accepts the decision of Australia’s most senior justices; dismissing it as a mere technicality rather than as an emphatic acquittal. So why should the High Court’s acquittal be accepted? The simple answer is that they are the final arbiters of the law: the law ends at the High Court.

Law can never be a perfect substitute for the truth. But in 2024, the truth of what happened in St Patrick’s Cathedral will be contested in the civil courts in a suit brought by the deceased choirboy’s father against Pell’s estate and the Archdiocese of Melbourne. Will that case partially restore the second jury’s findings or affirm the High Court’s acquittal? Like what Lee J says, it is likely that ‘any unwelcome findings will be peremptorily dismissed.’

Pell died suddenly in 2023. Had he not been acquitted, he would likely have been on parole. News coverage of his passing focused on the division resulting from his criminal proceedings. For some, he was a modern Catholic martyr. For others, he was a predator and enabler. Separating the facts from the fancy is never easy. 12 Victorians wrestled with doubt; the other 12 had no such struggle. To the seven on the High Court, the doubt arose again, never to be dispelled. A legal Rorschach test, the final decision is either the triumphant conclusion of a bitter battle against falsity or an acquittal blotted with multiple asterisks. Like everything else surrounding his life, the community is divided. The jury remains out.

What’s (not) a Law?

Defining the Law in Negative Space

Joel Karanikas

What is a law? This is an elementary question, yet legal philosophers are far from anything resembling a settled answer. Broadly speaking, the debate is divided in two: those who think that law is reducible to social facts and those who think that law is connected to morality.

If our understanding of what the law is poses a question, we may instead find it prudent to ask what the law is not. At first glance, this question may not appear to be a panacea to our problem. Many things are not laws: for example, morals, suggestions, and the 2002 AU Ford Falcon. In any case, the purely negative method of enlightenment has traditionally been understood as the exclusive stomping-ground of theologians, who call it the via negativa. These theologians lament the inadequacy of language in attempting to describe the highest power — God is left to carve his identity out of imperfect metaphors. Therefore, the only statements which are literally true about God are negative statements, such as ‘God is a non-entity.’

The law has, in a similar fashion, puzzled and mystified those who have attempted to systematise it. Perhaps a definition of what the law is not may help us understand this mystery.

The Concept of Law

Now of course, when Parliament passes a law, we do not generally spend an afternoon stroking our chins in awestruck bemusement. The law-making process, while often complex and confusing, simply appears to spring from human action, not fall from the sky. An institution authorised to create rules and regulations does so, and people obey them because of social customs that determine the sources of authority. If you broadly assent to this theory, you are a legal positivist, a position most

famously proposed in H.L.A. Hart’s The Concept of Law. You believe that law is not a fundamental truth; rather, it is derivative and owes its existence to more basic entities. These entities are social physical facts, facts that can be observed in our reality — the regularities of human social behaviour, customs, dynamics of power. The law is a human reaction to the facts of life.

Law, Religion, and Morality

But somehow, through messy customs and contested decisions, a law can establish what should be donein other words, a norm. Because it is normative, the language of law often mirrors the language of morality: there are duties, obligations, and imperatives. Its validity seems to be more than the product of brute strength or social compliance, so morality arises as a possible ground of law. This view is found in Plato’s Gorgias, where the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates opines that legislation is to the soul what gymnastics is to the body; that is, promotes the well-being of the soul, ridding us of wickedness. In the Platonic tradition, the law was conceived of in terms of order and harmony; it was not a mere human creation, but was rather part of the divine harmony that governed the entire cosmos.

Plato and Socrates were far from unique in associating law with a divine moral order, and it is not hard to see why. Today, laws govern virtually the entire spectrum of human behaviour. They determine how one ought to behave in nearly every situation and, ultimately, express a collective way of life. But once upon a time, this role was matched by religion, which gave divine sanction to norms and ways of life. In many cultures throughout history, religion and law were entangled in complex ways. For centuries in Western history, it was not unusual for people to believe that the criminal law traced back to the Ten Commandments and, in general, legal institutions were derived in part from divine law.

In the modern West, Protestant ethics served as the midwife of the birth of secular legal systems. But with the Enlightenment’s assault on theology, the divine world lost its unquestioned indispensability to morality and consequently to law. The ground of law initially mutated into an understanding of divine law as something encoded in the universe, although proponents hesitated when ascribing divine authorship, in the development of what was called ‘natural law.’ By the 17th century one could propose without controversy that true moral principles could be derived from a secular world of experience and reason. This ‘natural law’ could justify the specific laws established by human authorities. But was this natural law universally binding?

From Natural Law to Sociology

At the heart of the problem is a dilemma, well-known to philosophers, proposed by David Hume in 1739. He pointed out that ‘ought’ statements cannot derive from ‘is’ statements. Thus, the fact that human biology endows us with certain natural dispositions does not mean we ought to act on them. Categorical obligations do not logically emerge from human nature. Hume’s argument was an attack on 18th century rationalists, and is deemed to have brought to an end the secular natural law tradition that had prevailed for more than 150 years.

If it is not ultimately grounded in nature, it then follows that law is simply a part of the socially created world – a contingent, changing, precarious product of social activity in principle no different from, say, the capitalist market or politics.

The task of grounding law in social facts was undertaken by John Austin and Jeremy Bentham in the 19th century but found its most powerful and nuanced proponent in H.L.A. Hart. Keeping to Hume’s distinction, the fact that law is made up of social facts, such as reg-

ular obedience and power, cannot make law obligatory, or normative. Social habits do not grant validity to law. Hart would, nonetheless, try to explain the normativity of law as a function of simply another social fact about secondary rules, removing any necessary connection to morality or justice. Indeed, Hume’s division between is and ought would affect non-positivists too, who at the end of the day could not escape explaining the validity of law in sociological terms - such as past political decisions that determine the limits of collective force.

The Juristic God

With the separation of facts and norms, law is revealed as a mere social creation, not a ‘brooding omnipresence in the sky.’A law is a normative evaluation; and an evaluation implies an evaluator. But in the absence of God, an unevaluated evaluator at whom the normative buck stops, it is impossible to say that anything ought to or ought not to be. No moral or legal claim can get away with the pretension of being more right than others without a higher standard of validation against which other claims are measured. In many ways, the crisis leads inexorably to some version of Kelsen’s notion of a basic norm – an ultimate norm which validates every other law, but which itself is simply presupposed, fusing ‘authorisation and rightness,’ is and ought. This is the juristic God who requires a leap of faith from his devotees. What is a law, then? Or rather, what is not a law? A law is not made of religion, or unchangeable natural reason, or metaphysical norms. Yet, neither is it entirely a prosaic social fact, insofar as it carries a normative power whose grounding remains an arbitrary presupposition. In some strange way, this presupposition is God — who is, as the theologians tell us, only negatively describable.

Socrates, Euthyphro, and the Law

What makes a Law Just?

Fadi Khousho

Imagine you are standing before the King’s Magistrate in Athens in 399 BC when you witness Socrates, weeks before his trial, ask the following of Euthyphro: ‘Is something pious because it is loved by the Gods, or is it loved by the Gods because it is pious?’

This question, the Euthyphro Dilemma, has echoed throughout philosophical and religious discourse ever since it was first posed. Euthyphro, who sought to prosecute his own father for the crime of murder, does so with the belief that it is just and appealing to the gods; that is, before Socrates muddies Euthyphro’s understanding of juristic morality and authority.

Put simply, if Euthyphro accepts that pious things are deemed pious because they are loved by the gods, he admits that piety is arbitrary and the subject of unreasonable and authoritative whims. However, if what is loved by the gods was pious before being loved, there ceases to be a need for authority and piety becomes self-evident.

The Euthyphro Dilemma has significant implications within the context of jurisprudential thought. Let us pose the question to ask, simply, ‘Is the law just because it is the law or is it the law because it is just?’

Much like Euthyphro, we may find ourselves conflicted in trying to reach an answer and slightly angry that Socrates bothered us with his philosophical antics.

Is it Just because it is the Law?

The first path we can choose is accepting that it is the quality of being a law which gives a statute or com-

mon law precedent this character of being just. For Socrates, like Hobbes, this does not mean that it is by a law’s existence that it has a just nature but rather, it is the status of ‘law’ which must be appreciable as morally sound.

Positivists like Hart agree that questions of what the law ought to be should not detract from the fact that laws exist and that they should be obeyed.3 It could be argued that obedience imbues a law with a just disposition. Socrates may be inclined to agree.

Before Hobbes coined the phrase, Socrates was aware that individuals entered into a social contract; that is to say, we as individuals have agreed to uphold the law to prevent anarchy and vigilantism. Regardless of whether the laws we uphold are just, the fact that they are observed and adhered to means that no individual is above the law and society may flourish. To put it axiomatically: a) laws are to be obeyed, b) obedience to the law promotes social flourishing, c) social flourishing is just, d) laws are just. In Crito, Socrates is recorded as having stated that he must accept the death penalty because it is the law and it would be just to do so.

The issue with accepting this first premise is that we must either believe obedience to unjust laws is, paradoxically, just or that no law is unjust because parliamentarians and judges are authorities which do not make mistakes. Euthyphro himself had trouble mediating the competing moralities of the Athenian gods and we have the same problem with 21st century Australian legislators.

It is Law because it is Just Conversely, in re-appropriating this Socratic dilemma, we may respond to the first premise by asserting that a particular mandate only ascends to the status of law because, on its own merits, it is fair. As Euthyphro observed, if legal authorities (or gods) instate laws because they are (by themselves) just, then the role of the lawmaker is nullified.

The second head of Socrates’ argument aligns with Natural Law theorists, who have argued that what we call the law is merely the realisation of intrinsic moral principles that inform good behaviour. These principles, they argue, are common to all individuals. To this end, parliamentarians and lawmakers serve to merely codify what all human beings would naturally consent to.

But we know not all laws are consented to. There would be no need for law reform assessments, protests, outcry or the ALRC if lawmakers were simply enacting what the Australian population universally agreed upon. The law is complex and ever-changing. The only thing consistent about the law is that it is dynamic, not only because of changing legal principles, but owing to shifts in morality as well.

In Plessy v Ferguson , the Michigan Supreme Court was tasked with determining whether a domestic statute precluded the intermingling of peoples based on race. The judgement in this case exemplifies the school of legal realism, whereby judges expressed that although, it might once have been the objective of ‘the courts to cater to or temporise with a prejudice’, the law could not be interpreted that way

anymore due to ‘the changed feeling of our people towards the African race.’

While this novel development is, from our modern-day perch, more commendable, it does not answer why societies undergo paradigmatic, moral change, only that they do and this, in some way, affects the law.

A Third Premise?

Truthfully, everything written thus far may as well be a red herring. We’ve been exploring dilemmas through the lens of the Ancient Greeks who envisioned them like the horns of a bull; one can either take the left horn or the right horn. But, like Phaedrus, we can break the horns and accept neither premise.

Perhaps laws are obeyed, not because they are laws or that disobedience would produce chaos, but because such laws are truly just. The just nature of these laws needs not be the byproduct of their inherent merits but the result of serious inquiry and judicial thought into their character. It may even be argued that obedience is one of the metrics by which we gauge a law’s fair character; that a law should only be obeyed insofar as it is moral. In the same axiomatic vein as the first premise, if a law is just and just things ought to be obeyed, only just laws should be obeyed.

Or, perhaps this is a hopeful reconciliation of the two premises. After all, what of just laws that are disobeyed by individuals who want to see society burn? Like Magritte, who had the audacity to point to a pipe and tell us it wasn’t one, can we point to a just law and say why it is so or why we obey it?

A Positive Panic about the Future

Serena Olatona with Georgia Cam

Dear Younger Self, Today, I had a conversation with Georgia Cam and thought about you. If you haven’t already crossed paths with her, I look forward to the day that you do. My conversation with her gave me cause to positively panic. I think that’s what they call excitement.

Knowing you the way I do, I know that you are aware that your challenges, uncertainties, and questions are not unique, and that other people have felt the same way and have survived. In fact, they have been rather successful. ‘Good for them,’ you might say, and then you will notice how some of the trees are already losing their leaves. The realisation that Autumn is startling. Now that exam season is approaching, it is clear that time has flown and yet, there were moments when it staggered lazily, daring at times to grind to a halt. Fortunately, you are not the grand exception, this advice is useful to you too.

So, stop. Remember to positively panic. You see, Georgia said that you’ll never have that quintessential perfect week where — all of a sudden — you’ve caught up on all your content and the schedule that you set out is perfectly executed. The week will never come where you are filled with one hundred percent of the energy required to do everything, your mood is fantastic, your brows perfect and your study-sleep-social schedule worth filing a patent for. No matter how much you aspire to it, next week will not be the perfect week. It’s not realistic. But while you cannot strive for perfection, you can still strive to do your absolute best. While it is optimistic to use the weekend as catchup time to complete your weekly to-do list, Georgia calls it a trap. She reminds herself that failing to schedule breaks and time off unfairly punishes yourself for being human.

Quite frankly, one day, law school will end and you’ll have a job; it’s not sustainable to burn yourself out so early on. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. You probably still don’t know what you’ll do when you grow up. Don’t worry. I made sure Georgia covered all of our bases.

Let’s say you do become a lawyer. Law firms are competitive. When there are 400 other applicants vying for the same role, you need to stand out. Identify the area you want to work in and contact employers that you can flatter and impress — whether that be a judge, barrister, or professor. You can meet people at all the events run by MULS or at competitions, but also, don’t be afraid to cold-email, especially if you can turn up the charm and show that there are some mutual interests.

For instance, Georgia completed her PACE unit at the Land and Environment Court. Studying the matters of lawyers that frequented the court, she was able to introduce herself to those who impressed her by expressing specifically and genuinely how much she admired their previous submissions. Having established a connection, she was able to express an interest to work

with them, if ever the opportunity were to arise and where it did, her connection helped her stand out.

When you do get a job, you might feel that positive panic swiftly transform into genuine panic when you realise that you have no idea what you’re doing and you’re in a space where everyone can see and hear you (apparently some junior lawyers call it a fish bowl). It’s uncomfortable to face the truth that you know very little, but that discomfort is worth embracing. In a junior role, everyone knows that you’re learning. They were once in your position too.

In a perfect world, your workplace is one where you are comfortable admitting to the gaps in your skillset, but that can still prove to be difficult. As a research assistant for a barrister, Georgia was provided with an environment where she felt comfortable to learn, grow and fail. If you don’t have a similar environment, you must show initiative. If the answer can be found without going to your superior, always opt for that. Instead of leaning on others to provide you with all the answers, demonstrate some initiative in finding the answer yourself, and then approach those few years older than you

with small asks. Suppose your job requires you to write an affidavit (and you don’t even know what one looks like), ask if someone in the position above you can send you an example from a previous matter that you can use as a model. You’ve got this!

Or maybe you’ll realise that being a lawyer is not for you. While you may face pressure internally or from your family, law is not for everyone and in leaving private practice, you’ll find yourself in good company. Still, how do you grapple with the idea that you’ve spent half a decade getting a law degree to not use it? (Is now a good time to remind you to positively panic?)

One in three lawyers report experiencing moderate to extremely severe symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, at some point in their career. Georgia decided to leave her job at a law firm once she realised that her firm required considerably long hours of unpaid overtime and had a toxic culture.

So, what next? Well, Georgia says having a law degree makes you one of the most employable people in your generation. You can go into government, or work for a corporation or NGO, or you can represent a celebrity and negotiate all of their partnerships and contracts (except Hugh Jackman, I’ve got dibs). I got Georgia to give me a checklist of the questions we should be asking ourselves when we’re making critical decisions about our future employment.

1. What are your values; what inspires you; and what gets you out of bed in the morning?

When people ask about her work, Georgia is actually just talking about her keen interests because they are one and the same. She gets paid to do what she fundamentally believes in and is inspired and motivated by. It might be cliché, but it’s apparently true; if you find a job you love, you will never have to work a day in your life.

2. What industry do you want to work in?

Lawyers can be anything from advisers to advocates to activists. Law touches every industry (even ones pertaining to Hugh Jackman – but remember I called dibs on him first).

3. Who inspires you in your chosen industry?

This is really important because as per Mimetic theory, we model our desires off of other people. So, find someone who is exactly where you want to be in 5 years. Do a deep dive into their LinkedIn and social media, find out everything you can about how they have progressed through their career and then reverse engineer the career so that you have a model beginning from their days in law school that you can follow.

If Georgia is who you’d like to model, here’s the tea. From a young age, she felt really out of control when it

came to politics and decision-making, particularly with the climate crisis. What she wanted was the skillset to advocate effectively and discuss these highly contentious topics. With her main mission in life being to protect the environment, she felt that degrees in law and environmental science were key in achieving her goals.

She is proof that a conflict averse person who hates heated arguments with raised voices can be a successful lawyer. In fact, she believes that a law degree helps you facilitate productive, informed discussions where people feel calm and in control. So she studied at Macquarie University. She reached her fourth year without having any legal experience (she joked that most job opportunities, where you want to gain experience, want you to have experience for that experience). Lectures and tutorials are indispensable in understanding the content, but the skillsets needed to draft an affidavit and manage clients can’t really be facilitated in a conventional classroom. So she dived into all that was on offer at MULS to gain some experience - negotiation competitions, mooting competitions, and networking events. Eventually, she found work in places where other students weren’t necessarily looking - working as a

legal research assistant for a barrister and a professor. After graduating, she went on to work at a legal firm that had a ‘successful’ environment and planning law team. Unfortunately, whilst they were successful at litigation in the Land and Environment Court, they were not successful in fostering a healthy work environment. Six months later, in the midst of the pandemic and what she calls a ‘quarter-life crisis’ but I prefer to call an ‘act of bravery’ she quit her job at the firm. Running through the three aforementioned questions, she realised that her greatest strength and flaw is that she is not motivated to do something unless she truly believes in it. What made working at the firm arduous was that she spent her days finding loopholes in environment and planning legislation to help big property developers clear land without worrying about the endangered species that lived there, and ultimately, that wasn’t why she studied law and environmental science. Relying on her connections with some incredible academics that she got to know well after representing Macquarie University in some mooting competitions, she was able to enter academia as a tutor and marker. But that’s not all, Georgia has a number of jobs and

volunteer roles that she moves between to keep her schedule varied, exciting, and fulfilling. Not only is she a terrific tutor, but she is also the CEO of the Earthly Institute which branches off into the realm of content creation on social media, as well as advocacy and research to help save our beautiful planet. What I found most impressive was that she volunteers her time to conduct research on youth and climate for the United Nations, so watch that space, we might be able to brag that we know an adviser to the UN in five years.

Basically, don’t be afraid to take risks; measured risks of course, they can’t be erratic. Georgia started her own charity in 2022 with the mindset that she had nothing to lose and now in 2024, the Earthly community has grown to over 555,000 individuals on Instagram who are the vehicle for her successful advocacy campaigns — everything from moratoriums on deep sea mining to engaging youth to build sustainable cities in their hometowns. It was her law degree that gave her the confidence to write a charity constitution and complete all of the administrative and legal challenges that were perhaps too daunting to others.

All in all, you will be okay. I mean, I’m coming to

you from the future and (just between you and me) it’s a good one. I’m excited.

From,

Your Older Self.

P.S. Please put the coffee down, keep calm and drink matcha (it’s got L-theanine which is apparently good for brain function and cognition). So, even if you don’t like it, grow up, it’s good for you… and you definitely need it.

How I Learnt to Love the Law

Leo Chang with the Rev Dr Greg Morgan

Do you like jurisprudence? There’s a likelihood that you responded to that question with a rather visceral reaction. (Let’s ignore the far greater likelihood that you didn’t respond at all.) Unlike every other subject, it feels uniquely repressed in its application. Commercial lawyers will draw upon contract law skills, prosecutors will consider their knowledge of criminal procedure every day, and constitutional lawyers are duly bound to administrative law principles; but legal philosophers seem to sit in a realm of their own.

To bridge the gap between jurisprudence and the rest of the law, The Brief is proud to present a conversation with Fr Greg Morgan. Fr Greg, having completed his PhD on the topic of jurisprudence and theories of natural law at Oxford, now serves as a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Sydney.

The question ‘What is Law?’ has been asked from generation to generation, from Crito to Hart. Its ubiquity can seem disproportionate to the modern law student. What is the importance of this question, and why should we continue to ask it?

Our understanding of the law and our application of the law are intimately connected. If we don’t have a clear understanding of what the law actually is, it’s not surprising if we see a complete breakdown in how the law is applied. The question ‘What is law?’ is a gravely important question, simply because the way we answer the question has so much power over the social fabric.

We’ve seen a number of thinkers who consider law to be a set of mere conventions [positivists], or a power game [Marxists], or something entirely divorced from reality [postmodernists, anti-realists]. Is it any surprise

that, alongside the popularity of such thinkers, the law became more contradictory? That it was ignored, exploited, and abused? To the postmodern mind, contradictions point towards a greater truth, but the problem is that self-contradictory systems are profoundly unstable in the meantime. Human beings can’t live according to two opposing truths.

To understand what the law is, it seems necessary to understand why it exists? Where does it come from, and what causes it to change?

Our laws and our culture are a two-way road. To a certain degree, opinions within society can cause the law to change, where lawmakers will rewrite laws to accommodate changing cultural phenomena. However, it’s also true that people’s moral values and their views of the world are so often shaped by the law. The law has a certain authority in the lives of people, and so any fragmentation in the legal system is a reflection of a fractured society. In the absence of an existing overarching unifying factor, people will try to make sense of the raw data, which can then be filtered down into various new ideologies. If the law is contradictory, it is no surprise that the resulting ideologies can be contradictory.

How can we work to prevent the vicious cycle of fragmented laws and a fractured society from growing stronger?

What I would hope is that people ultimately try to make objective claims based on reality, and then use that as a basis on which laws are established. No one wants to say ‘The law is simply a power game’ when they’re establishing a law, even if they believe that it is. The law can’t be just another social phenomenon. The law has to be a bulwark against cultural change that is driven by

emotivism or faddism, and this is where jurisprudence is fundamental.

In our world today, discourse is breaking down. For example, we can look at the rhetoric surrounding the concept of equality or liberty and our desire to respect these principles in law. If we’re not clear on the definition and the purpose of the law, our laws will be vulnerable to the abuse of power. We should think about going back to that old Platonic idea that, ultimately, the law has to reflect something of reality. It seems like a big metaphysical jump in today’s world, but we already try to bring our thinking back to reality: we appeal to nature, we talk about the state of affairs [environmental activism or the prescriptive ideal of peace enunciated by the UN]. Despite all the theoretical postmodern challenges to the concept of a common reality, we haven’t stopped relying on it.

If jurisprudence is so important, why do lawyers and law students rarely consider it?

Something that I’ve observed is that law students would much rather learn about what the laws are rather than what they mean. The deeper ethical questions (which you’d hope that lawyers are thinking about!) only bubble up when you ask the typical questions that jurisprudence asks. It’s a microcosm of society today. What are the most important questions in our life? Most would probably go along the lines of ‘Why do I exist?’, ‘What happens when I die?’, and ‘How can I grow in virtue?’ And yet, it’s seldom that people seriously think about them. We’re conditioned not to think in our modern frenetic rat race.

For lawyers, there’s a particular danger in this. You can learn the precedent, you can learn how to present yourself, you can fill your head with the opinions of others and all the while never think: ‘Hold on. What makes a law a law? Are they the mere whims of a legislator or are they related to the common good? Are laws merely conventions, or do they reflect something deeper about reality?’ Now, I don’t mind if you end up with an opinion that’s completely different to mine, but it is a responsibility of every law student and every lawyer to hold an opinion.

I’ve noticed a sense of apathy to the most important questions of life. Students, generally, tend to be rather apathetic towards jurisprudence. When we study jurisprudence, what often comes up to the surface are questions that we would rather avoid — but the fact that we want to avoid them is generally a sign that these are rather important things to address.

What would you suggest that students do if they want to learn more about jurisprudence?

I am convinced of the value of conversing with those who hold opinions antithetical to my own. Something that I really appreciated about Oxbridge was that, as a priest, I was rubbing shoulders with people who held very different opinions. I was able to appreciate the depth of thought that was there, rather than seeing them as ‘a positivist’ or ‘an example of empiricism’. A good dialogue presupposes that both participants are trying to search for the truth, and my conversational partners were genuinely trying to do so.

The sad thing is that people don’t converse about these topics anymore. We’ve slowly convinced ourselves that the truth is unknowable or undesirable. As a result of that, we’ve given up something that’s essential to our human freedom. Real human freedom is to be convinced that you can engage your mind to think about the biggest questions of life and to try and find out if there is a deeper significance. But, it’s hard, challenging work, and it’s easier to try and build an artificial consensus. We know from experience that it doesn’t work; an artificial consensus is always going to be broken.

How would you suggest beginning the conversation, granted it’s an inherently personal subject?

When you’re speaking to people you disagree with, you’ve got to understand them. That’s half the issue — we don’t invest enough in trying to understand the opinion of ‘the other’. If we don’t understand their opinion before engaging them in battle, we create battlegrounds that are simply not there. So, before you form any underground movements — which I’m all for, by the way — it’s important that we actually know what’s really going on. Why do people think that way? Why do they say those things? This is why learning about jurisprudence or studying philosophy is so important — the real battles are battles of ideas.

What is most fundamental is respect. That’s part of the principle of charity, I believe. Part of talking is coming to the understanding that the other person has thought their beliefs through. I might completely disagree with this person. I might think that what they’re doing is wrong. But the more you understand about why they think the way they think, the more effective you’ll be at learning about the world. At the very least, you’ll be far more effective than someone caught in a screaming match.

Are there any particular pieces of advice you’d give regarding discussion?

There’s a great value in forming little communities for discussion. University is such a wonderful place to find people where you can have honest conversations. The people that change the world are, very often, a rather small group. Think about the influence of the Frankfurt school, a group of intellectuals who were trying to envisage a world emboldened by Marxian principles. There should be a level of excitement, a sense of possibility, but it all does depend largely on being in the correct state of mind. You’re trying to really understand, you’re informed, and you’re conversant with those that you might think are your interlocutors or all views that are different to your own.

It’s also important to talk within what we might consider our own groups, to find out where and why we disagree with those closest to us. For example, in the natural law camp, there are debates as to which universal system provides the best reasons for specific moral laws. If natural law theorists violently disagree as to the nature of that system, they can’t expect to be

found persuasive as a whole by people who don’t even share those basic foundations.

We have to appreciate and understand ideas, even those that we don’t agree with or those that we think are irrational. Before we say anything, we need to understand what our interlocutors think and in what words they express themselves . Otherwise, any dialogue that we attempt to enter into will be completely ineffective; we’ll just end up talking past each other.

On a different topic, how relevant is jurisprudence for the working legal professional? Can it even be useful?

The reason why jurisprudence is so significant is because law reflects the heart of our society. The law can change the ways in which people behave and the ways in which they think about morality. The law is a powerful medium to do that, which is why governments are so focused on changing law. Altering legislation can help in regulating behaviour.

You can often be lulled into thinking that what you do at work has little bearing, but there are great existential questions being raised, and it would be pru-

dent to at least be aware of them. When you’re aware of them, you’ll be able to understand whether something requires a bit of further reflection, or even whether something is truly outside your understanding that requires further consultation. Or, more likely, whether it’s something that you could just get on with.

Within your career, you’re inevitably going to come across situations where you feel like there’s something ethically problematic. There’s a variety of ways you can be challenged like this — maybe it’s how you’re using the law, or maybe it’s how the law presents itself. In those moments, do you simply go through the flow and say, ‘Okay, I can apply this precedent or that statute to make my life easier?’ Or do you have the intellectual courage to say, ‘There’s a problem here that needs to be addressed?’

In day-to-day work, given the gruelling working conditions of many legal environments, how can a lawyer act ethically while delivering results?

It’s difficult to gauge how far you should go in considering the merits of a problem. I’m not expecting lawyers to sit at their desks while reflecting on every case before them — that’s the job of a philosopher. But, to some extent, we’ve all got to be philosophers. We’ve all got to think about what it’s we’re giving your life to. In some respects, it’s an ongoing process that should be a part of being a lawyer.

Of course, the extent to which you’re free to consider the law depends on the context and your own particular scenario. However, even being cognizant of the bigger questions pressing against us is a step in the right direction. Just choosing to consider those questions that we might like to avoid because they get in the way of efficiency, making money, and so forth.

In day-to-day work, given the gruelling working conditions of many legal environments, how can a lawyer act ethically while delivering results?

A lot of what I’ve been talking about might be labelled utopian. The idea of lawyers, and even the law at large, both have quite a negative profile today. In the public imagination, lawyers are often negatively distinguished from so many other professions, whether it be a priest or a real estate agent. And I think it’s because the law seems to be a field so devoid of ethics.

The fruit of legal positivism is that the law doesn’t really have much to do with ethics. The is-ought distinction makes sure of that. But ideas have consequences. A

generation of students who have had the differences between the law and ethics drilled into them aren’t going to be the most effective when tasked with being ethical in their day-to-day work.

In reality, lawyers are intuitively influenced by ethics, even when they believe that it shouldn’t be the case. It doesn’t necessarily involve abstract metaphysical debates. It just happens to arise when a lawyer works. The nobility of the legal profession and its capacity to be a force for good in society aren’t impossible to maintain when you separate the law and ethics, but they’re not as sustainable. The natural law will act against lawyers when lawyers act against the common good. So, again, it’s a two way process. The lawyer should still act in accordance with the laws that reflect the common good. If a written law is unjust, then it behoves us to do something about it.

A law may have been promulgated and generally considered thus, but if a law does not promote the common good, then it’s simply not in tune with reality. So, the problem ultimately lies with the law. I wouldn’t want to attribute sin to anyone, but the reason that the law itself is so vulnerable to misinterpretation or abuse is simply because of wilful ignorance or malicious intent arising from our own moral shortcomings. The greatest sin of a lawyer is refusing to recognise the nobility of their profession by refusing to reflect on the very nature of the law itself.

The Rev Dr Gregory Morgan is a Catholic priest presently serving in Sydney. He has studied in Sydney, Cambridge, and Oxford.

Dead Poets Society

Mikaela Mariano

WAcross

13 Sounds like their place (5)

17 Deposing fringe culture is sad thing, bile, perverse (15)

18 Clod, confused heart (5)

1 Stony imam is without online messaging; aversion (9)

9 Make lemonade cocktail? Grand (6)

23 In PS? Shown-off bum, deep! Slow down! (5,4)

24 The Frenchwoman Not Upset: Musical (5)

10 Hypnotised singer: Oh, to see you, Tea Ice-Treat (9)

25 Also, lit air explodes in itself, alone (9)

11 A mess in waste water (1,4)

26 Rigid sun god reportedly missed

12 Greek man (before salvation) nor highest lost goy (?) collected (9)

(6)

13 Sounds like their place (5)

17 Deposing fringe culture is sad thing, bile, perverse (15)

Down

2 I believe in 9 CE (6)

3 Revealing why to the listener (6)

4 Dependency on misshapen slate tile (9)

5 Thor’s aid: guns. (they’re odd to autograph) (2,4)

6 27 Blues Co (6)

7 Pathetic dog without human contact heads to UK Emergency Departments (9)

8 Regressive policy expert Cliff’s justified true belief (9)

18 Clod, confused heart (5)

Thor's aid: guns. (they're odd

autograph) (2,4)

(9)

23 In PS? Shown-off bum, deep! Slow down! (5,4)

(6)

24 The Frenchwoman Not Upset: Musical (5)

14 Busy Dave books chaotic rue escapade (9)

15 Artsy moon confused study of stars (9)

16 Scam fools nice, staid (9)

19 Honour all in who? (6)

Regressive policy expert Cliff's justified true belief (9)

25 Also, lit air explodes in itself, alone (9)

26 Rigid sun god reportedly missed a overdose (6)

20 Riot pro in Ural organisation never loses (6)

Busy Dave books chaotic rue escapade (9)

21 Is ABBA opposing Pakistani PM? (6)

27 Is it, er, sad? Just Greek, man (9)

Artsy moon confused study of stars (9)

16 Scam fools nice, staid (9)

19 Honour all in who? (6)

20 Riot pro in Ural organisation never loses (6)

21 Is ABBA opposing Pakistani PM? (6)

22 'Come out', M urges utterly alone

atching this movie stirred something within me, prompting deep reflection on the importance of finding my own voice and thinking independently. As a law student, I often feel the tug of conformity, pressured to fit into the mould of what’s expected in the legal world. But Dead Poets Society serves as a poignant reminder to resist the urge to blend in and instead embrace my unique perspective and critical thinking skills.

Though the movie may not directly tie into the topics covered in this edition of The Brief, its underlying message speaks volumes. Just like Professor Keating encourages his students to challenge the status quo and speak their truth, we, as future legal eagles, must also summon the courage to question unjust laws and hone our advocacy skills.

One scene from Dead Poets Society resonates deeply with me on a personal level. It’s the moment when Todd Anderson, initially depicted as a reserved introvert, stands atop his desk and recites ‘O Captain, My Captain’. Todd’s transformation from timid to bold

22 ‘Come out’, M urges utterly alone (6)

symbolises the profound impact of finding our voice and speaking out against injustice.

As I watched this scene, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own journey. Like Todd, I’ve experienced moments of hesitation and self-doubt in navigating the complexities of the legal field. However, witnessing his courageous act reminded me of the power we hold when we dare to raise our voices, not only to present compelling arguments but also to challenge unjust norms and systems.

The words of Professor Keating, ‘There’s a time for daring and there’s a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for,’ reverberate in my mind. They serve as a constant reminder of the delicate balance between courage and prudence as we strive for justice. This scene, etched in my memory, inspires me to embrace moments of daring while exercising wisdom in my pursuit of truth and equity.

Reflecting on this, I am reminded of my own journey in the legal field ( I guess what you would call my “Roman Empire”). Just as the characters in the film grapple with finding their own voices and questioning conventional norms, I too find myself navigating the complexities of the law. Like the elusive nature of poetry and expression in the movie, the law often defies precise definition, remaining enigmatic and resistant to easy categorisation. Yet, this uncertainty should not deter us; instead, it should inspire us to question the law and fearlessly seek justice.

Film Poster © The Walt Disney Company, 1989. Used without permission.

A Brief Review

Scripted Chaos

Surviving the Law Revue Experience

Connor Chandler

Within the halls of academia lies a strange phenomenon. An alluring project where the line between passion and obsession blurs. A task where the toll is measured not in mere sweat and tears, but rather in the very essence of the law students who dare to join.

Welcome to a show about law.

Found deep in historical tradition, for some godforsaken reason, the Law Revue forms an integral part of a true legal education. It is a sanctuary where tortured students showcase their pain through sketch, song, and satire. The show provides a way to escape the moot court and presents itself as the perfect antidote to the stress of law school. But beneath the glamour of the show is a daunting reality. This, importantly, is where I come in.

I began my journey with the Law Revue in my first year. Now, one must note that this journey did not begin according to my own volition. It began in the way that many journeys begin: with a good friend. In this case, a good friend who forced me to audition. But oh, am I glad that I did. That year was adventurous, to say the least. I made a new family. We would laugh, perform, and celebrate. Students came from across all years, and most of them I still call friends to this day. The feeling of being on stage with the people you love, making others laugh, is a truly liberating experience. That year will always remain one of the best years of my life. But that was where things changed.

For you see, most participants consider being a cast member enough. The weekly rehearsals and show runs are enough to satisfy their appetites. Yet some decide that there must be more. The next adventure lies in being a producer, and this is where the seemingly angelic landscape begins to disfigure itself. But, you see, for those willing, the beck and call of directorship is something unstoppable. For me and my fabulous co-director, this shiniest of lures was irresistible and our gravestones shall read:

Here lie the Directors of Law Revue 2024

What lies ahead is something quite marvellous.

‘Your Honour!’ A phrase that most law students know (I hope) as a pet name for the judges. But for us, it is the name of this year’s show, stolen and rewritten from the one and only Broadway musical ‘Beetlejuice’. If you are lost, you’ve probably heard the sound on TikTok!

Check out this snippet from my pitch, a word here which means a teaser that encapsulates the essence of the entire show.

‘It is a harrowing production that teeters on the edge of absurdity and realism. It shatters the façade of glamour and prestige associated with the legal profession, exposing the grotesque hellscape that awaits aspiring law students. The question that looms like a menacing shadow is this: Do you dare venture forth to become a solicitor, a barrister, or, worst of all, a high court judge?’

As dark as this may seem, we promise it’ll leave you laughing your head off in your seats!

The masterpiece has started to take shape and the rehearsals are filled with palpable excitement. The prospect of entertaining an audience while lampooning legal conventions fuels our determination.

Yet, deep down I know; the days will surely turn into weeks, the balance between work, uni, and life will skew, the luxury of sleep will fade and the very essence of me will dissolve. And yet my love for my show shall surely grow.

As I begin this journey, knowing what beast lies ahead, I find some solace amidst the chaos. Although the cracks are starting to show in a harmonious life once filled with love, freedom and hope, the moments of sheer brilliance and enjoyment seem to make it all so worthwhile. The highs and lows of Law Revue have left an indelible mark on my life. It has taught me the importance of perseverance in the face of adversity, the value of collaboration in the pursuit of a common goal, and the power of laughter to transcend boundaries and bring people together.

So, to all those embarking on their own journey, I offer this advice; embrace the challenges, cherish the moments, and above all, never lose sight of why you started in the first place. For in the end, it is not the accolades or applause that define our journey, but the courage to step into the spotlight, however imperfectly. You’ll just have to wait until August to find out if it was worth it.

I cannot wait to showcase this masterpiece to you all, my friends. Stay tuned, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Poster © Macquarie University Law Revue, 2024. Used without permission.

Deadline Dilemma

Lex Takhar

11:52 Why is this due at 11:55?! Why isn’t it due at 11:59, like every other assignment? Should I just wait for tomorrow? Should I accept the 5% penalty, or should I just submit the work as it stands?

11:53 Why did I go to that party on Friday? I had to miss work just to submit this assignment, and I haven’t even finished it in time. I literally — yes, actually literally — didn’t have any time. I had to work and I had to spend the whole week getting ready for class. And I had to go to the party.

11:54 If I hadn’t gone it would have killed my social life. But there was a torts assignment due on Wednesday that I had to finish, so obviously I couldn’t even start this one until Thursday. And I thought I could finish it by Sunday, but it was way harder than the tutor had said. So then I took time off of work — which isn’t actually fair, now that I think about it. Why do I have to sacrifice so much to submit this in time?

11:55 I give up. I submit it as is. With trembling hands, I click the Submit button, my heart pounding in my chest. But as I scroll through the document one last time, dread washes over me like a tidal wave.

11:56 Staring at me, there at the end of the page — Harvard referenced footnotes! The lack of compliance to the Australian Guide to Legal Citation, 4th Edition!

11:57 In a panic, I fire off an email to my tutor, silently begging for forgiveness and praying for a miracle. But the reality of my mistake sinks in and the room starts to spin.

11:58 I can almost hear my tutor intoning, in an ice-cold voice, ‘In legal practice, you can’t ask your clients for forgiveness once you give them false advice’

11:59 I gasp for air, feeling panic close in around me. And then, with a final, desperate plea for mercy, I collapse onto the floor. As I drifted away, a realisation comes over me: the LAWS2300 Late Penalty Policy, which states that ‘a 1-hour grace period is provided to students who experience a technical issue…’

Lawtime Poems

Seuss on Natural Law

Anya Maclure

’Twas the sunlight that followed the eve, That a man lay awake, lost in make-believe.

A big stretch, a wide stretch, a stretched stretch he did, And picked up his quill with twirly-whirled twid.

Morality weighed down his philosophical mind, He had something to think about, maybe… mankind?

‘What is law, why is law, who is law, when is law? Where is law, how is law — could it all be a tragic flaw?’

He wriggled in his chair, adjusting a cushion to sit upright, He was feeling the flow that thinkers do, even if it was just the slight.

‘From nature — that is the way that you and I think, We like fairness, and values, and things that interlink.

Political order and legislature and big men mean no matter, for our morality and rightness can withstand time - it will not splatter.

We understand right and we understand wrong. Innate as it is, it is also lifelong.

What one can feel is beyond thought — it is right! And for natural law, quite simply, this is its plight.’

The man looked up, a grin right ’cross his face. He finally got it, something nifty to embrace.

Next Time, Ad Aeternitatem

The Boxer

Caesar Adsum Jam Forte

Editor’s Welcome

In the aftermath of our afterparty for the publication of our 100th issue of 2024, we’ve decided to take a step back from the limelight and return to our humble roots. No more full-colour inserts and other luxuries! We shall re- turn to the way of the humble loose leaf. To compensate any new readers ex- pecting more from their subscription, we’ve published a comprehensive list of the Macquarie University sysadmin usernames and passwords overleaf. News

Parliament Rejects Bill to Raise Salaries

CANBERRA Parliament has al- most unanimously rejected a bill that would have raised the annual salary of representatives. The ALP, Coalition, Greens and One Nation have released a joint statement, cit- ing ‘widespread economic hardship’ and ‘basic human empathy’ as their reasons for opposing the bill. Sole holdout Bob Katter has introduced a bill which would grant the sum of the prospective salaries to himself, although further motions shall be delayed until ‘people cease to be torn to pieces in North Queensland’.

Sydney University to introduce new ‘Object Permanence’ core unit to LLB CAMPERDOWN

‘Really White Australia Policy’ To Be Repealed

CANBERRA Enacted in 1923, the ‘Super Immigration Restriction Act’ has been on the Federal Register for over a century. The Act prohibits playing in mud, being directly ex- posed to the sun, and the possession of Italians for criminal purposes. Former Prime Minister Scott Morri- son is currently under investigation for an alleged 1997 breach commit- ted in Engadine.

NSW Government Halts Legis- lative Changes to Cut Textbook Costs

‘Rich’

Law Students Outnumber ‘Very Rich’ Law Students for First Time

MACQUARIE PARK An institution- al survey of Macquarie University law students has revealed that ‘rich’ students outnumber ‘very rich’ stu- dents for the first time since 1975. The survey relied on findings related to parental income, private school at- tendance, and Starbucks proficiency. The University has stated that their aim is to introduce ‘middle class’ students to the cohort by 2050.

UTS Law Student Graduates Without Ever Using Words Lon- ger Than Three Letters

The University of Sydney has announced their inten- tion to introduce the new ‘Object Permanence’ course to their Bachelor of Laws program in 2025. The Dean of Law has cited ‘significant difficul- ties’ as his primary justification. The University is currently assessing the benefits of introducing a common ‘Spoon Feeding’ module in 2026.

SYDNEY A new NSW law has pre- vented legislative outgrowth to mi- nimise textbook costs. Citing the work of scholar KFB Packer, Premier Chris Minns announced that new bills may only be introduced to the floor once an existing law has been repealed. The law further prohibits individuals named Bill from visiting Parliament House.

ULTIMO Recent UTS Law Gradu- ate Con Szysley graduated without ever using a word longer than three letters in his assignments and pre- sentations. ‘A bit is wit,’ Szysley reportedly said, ‘and a lot is not’. When asked what his plans were, he stated ‘The law is big, but I can do a lot. I’ll go to the Bar and try for SC.’ When asked whether acronyms were considered more than three letters long, he hit me.

Classifieds

Edition 101

News (cont.)