First Lecture: The Common Law System and Commercial Morality

[Extract]
The common law is the legal system inherited from English law. It is not British law because Scotland has a separate civil law system, although it incorporates much statute law which applies to both England and Scotland from its membership to the British Parliament. The common law has a history of a thousand years, and it has developed both within England and in former English colonies throughout the world through a succession of political, legal, and economic changes. In this study, these issues are analysed through Australian eyes, from a country that became a single national unit in 1901, joining together six former colonies, although the slow process of disentangling legally and politically from English law took until 1986. Whereas the United States got their original inheritance from former English colonies through revolution, Australia gained its existence through agreement and legislation, both in England and in Australia.