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Campus: Kensington Campus
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Career: Postgraduate
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Units of Credit: 6
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Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 4
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Enrolment Requirements:
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Prerequisite: LAWS2311
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Excluded: LAWS2321
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Description
Litigation 2 provides a contextual and critical overview of significant evidentiary principles and rules. It introduces students to the rules of evidence pursuant to the Evidence Act 1995 and related issues which typically apply in most court orientated litigation. Litigation 2 is not an advocacy skills course but a good grasp of rules of evidence and procedure is a pre-requisite to becoming an accomplished advocate.
Litigation 2 is a compulsory course that builds on and extends students' studies of Criminal and Civil Procedure in Litigation 1, Criminal Law 1 & 2 and Law, Lawyers and Society.
Recommended Prior Knowledge
None
Course Objectives
- To establish a basic knowledge of the doctrine, principles and rules relating to procedure and evidence law in both civil and criminal litigation in the trial stage. Students will be provided with structured opportunities to acquire a functioning and contextual knowledge of law and legal institutions and intellectual skills of analysis, synthesis, critical judgment, reflection and evaluation
- To foster personal and professional values gained from an understanding and sensitivity to a variety of related ethical, social, economic, political and justice issues affecting the formal resolution of criminal and civil matters: eg defence and prosecutorial practices; the use of judicial resources; the role of juries; the accused’s position in court: to foster students’ critical analytical skills and enhance their understanding from a social justice orientation of trial related practice issues
- To provide students with the opportunity to actively engage in the learning experience through classroom discussions and activities. This enhances their ability to critically evaluate trial processes from legal and social justice perspectives. It also enhances challenging their assumptions and beliefs
Main Topics
- Adversarialism, the accused and the criminal trial;
- Relevance and discretionary and mandatory exclusions;
- Proof and judicial knowledge;
- Obtaining testimony (prosecutorial fairness, unrepresented accused, testimonial competence and compellability);
- Questioning witnesses in court (examination in chief, cross-examination, re-examination, unfavourable witnesses, credibility attacks on witnesses, special rules regarding sexual offences);
- The hearsay rule and its exceptions;
- Evidence of opinion and expert testimony;
- The accused (the accused as a witness, his/her right to silence, character, tendency and coincidence evidence);
- Unreliable evidence and warnings.
Assessment
Compulsory
Advanced Court Observation or Research Essay 30%
End of semester exam (Open book) 70%
Optional
Class participation (maximisable) 10% Course Texts
- Hunter J, Cameron C, & Henning Litigation II: Evidence and Criminal Process (7th ed) LexisNexis B’worths (2005)
- Evidence Act (NSW or Cth), 1995 or an Evidence Act annotation. A copy of the legislation is also available at http://www.austlii.edu.au
- Faculty of Law, UNSW, JURD7221 Supplementary Materials (UNSW Bookshop)
Recommended
See the Course Outline available at the beginning of the relevant semester.
Resources
Refer to Course Outline provided by lecturer.
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