LAW IN CONTEXT PODCast

WELCOME TO THE LAW IN CONTEXT PODCAST

LAW IN CONTEXT began as a book in 1991 and is now also a podcast series designed to introduce law in a critical way to the general public, current students and those thinking of taking up the subject.

Season 1 in 2024 contained 15 episodes designed as a primer for those interested in the fundamentals of common law systems and how they differ from other legal systems.

Season 2 in 2025 takes a deeper dive into the fascinations of Law in Context.

latest episodes

Sources of Law image

episode 15 – PROVE IT! HOW PERSUADED MUST WE BE IN LAW?

It’s well known that for someone to be found guilty of a crime, the decision-maker must be persuaded “beyond a reasonable doubt”.  This is the standard of proof.  In civil claims, the standard is “on the balance of probabilities”.

In criminal matters, the onus of proving to this standard is on the prosecution; and in civil claims it is on the plaintiff.

In this episode we discuss what all this means in practice, and note that in the majority of all court matters it doesn’t reach this stage because the defendant pleads guilty or the civil claim is settled without trial.

This is said to be different in civil code systems such as France, but although there are major differences in procedure, the required standard actually seems to be similar.

We promise to give listeners our opinion on which system is better – in episode 1000

Rule of Law

episode 16 – Mine not yours! property law in context

You might think the idea of property is straightforward.  In a way, it is.  Almost anything tangible and many things intangible are capable of being property, under the common law.  Even one of our jokes is capable of being property, assuming we actually made it up.

But “property” to a lawyer is not so much about the item in question, but the rights associated with it.  

Is the right exclusive, or is it divided up, for example between the landlord who owns the freehold and a tenant who owns a lease?  

Has someone else acquired rights over land by continuous use, through the law of prescription?  

Has the apparent owner actually lost their rights if contested by someone who has been in exclusive possession of the land, without force, secrecy or permission, for a long period – so-called “squatters’ rights”?

In this episode we try to unbundle what the law bundles up, and we end by noting the cultural context of property law, which is based around individuals and particular kinds of uses.  This looks ahead to the next episode, on native title, and the question whether and when the common law is capable of recognising the communal use of property by first nations’ peoples.

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EPISODE 17 – NATIVE TITLE AND THE CASE OF EDDIE MABO

All legal systems of previously colonised countries have grappled with the contest between land rights for the original peoples of those countries and the claims of settlers or conquerors.  Australia was an unusual case.  It wasn’t exactly conquered.  Nor did the Indigenous peoples cede the land to the English settlers.  

The only remaining option under international law at the time was for Australia to have been “discovered”.  But this meant ignoring the thousands of people who had “discovered” it tens of thousands of years earlier.  Australia was declared “terra nullius” – land belonging to no one.
The consequence was that the British Crown acquired sovereignty and any native land rights were extinguished.
The fiction of terra nullius became more and more repugnant and eventually the High Court of Australia found a way through, in the case of Mabo v Queensland (No 2) in 1992.   The Crown (now the Australian states) had legal title but Indigenous people who could show continuous occupation might have “beneficial” title, unless it had actually been extinguished.
In this extended episode we hear from Professor Kate Galloway, an expert in land law with long experience of native title matters, about the case of Eddie Mabo, one of the most important cases in Australian legal history.
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