Business law

This tutorial is useful for students who have limited prior knowledge of Australian law. The tutorial introduces you to the fundamentals, principles and language of law.

It includes a glossary of common legal terms, language exercises and legal concept maps. The activities will assist you in becoming familiar with the language of the law.

Glossary of common terms

Study the glossary below then complete the activities to test your knowledge of common terms.

Terms	Definitions
Legislation/Acts or statutes	Laws made by both commonwealth and state parliaments
Common or case law	Laws made by judges in courts
Plaintiff	The person(s) taking legal action against another person(s) in civil cases
Prosecution	The lawyers presenting a case for the crown against a defendant in a criminal action
Defendant	The person(s) defending legal action against another party
Equity	Separate body of law which supplements the rules of common law based on fairness and justice
Doctrine of precedent	Decisions of a higher court are binding on lower courts in the same court hierarchy when judging similar cases
Ratio decidendi	The reason for the judge's decision
Binding precedent	A previous decision that must be followed
Persuasive precedent	A previous decision that influences future decisions but need not be followed outside the court hierarchy or from lower courts within the same hierarchy