Colonial Innovations: The Foundations of Civil Justice in Australia
Project Member(s): Dorsett, S.
Funding or Partner Organisation: Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Projects)
Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Projects)
Start year: 2019
Summary: The foundations of civil justice in Australia. This project aims to provide an in-depth historical account of the origins of our civil justice system in Australia. Judicial institutions and their practices were key to the founding of civil society in the Australian colonies. This project will produce new knowledge about the origins of our civil justice system. The project will trace legal reformist ideas in England, their dissemination across Britain's Empire and the impact these had on how judges and administrators in the Australian colonies crafted their judicial practices to provide speedy and effective access to civil justice. As well as scholarly writing, this project will provide a podcast and multi-media website that explains how civil trials worked in the mid-nineteenth century.
Publications:
Dorsett, S 2019, 'Procedural reform in the nineteenth century British Empire: the failure of Barron Field in Gibraltar', Comparative Legal History, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 130-156.
View/Download from: Publisher's site
FOR Codes: Legal Processes, Understanding Australia's Past, Civil Justice, Legal Institutions (incl. Courts and Justice Systems), Law and Society, History and Philosophy of Law and Justice, Law and society and socio-legal research, Understanding Australia¿¿¿s past