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Criminology and Justice: Finding Legal Materials

Legal Research

Legal Materials

When using legal materials it is important to understand the two categories of legal materials:

Primary legal materials are the written records of the law

  • Legislation
  • Cases 

Secondary legal materials are those materials which are ABOUT the law:

  • Extrinsic legal materials which are documents, defined within a jurisdiction's Interpretation Act, that can be used in court to interpret the meaning and intent of legislation.  These usually consist of Parliamentary debates (Hansard), which includes Second Readings of a Bill, and Law Reform documents.
  • Sentencing Decisions and Remarks by Judges.
  • Books, journals and commentaries which discuss the law
  • Reference tools which help find the law (dictionaries, encyclopedias, guides and directories).

Here you will find information on searching for Western Australian and Australian Legislation, Case law and Hansard (Parliamentary Debates). For more information on searching for Legal materials, please see the Law Library Guide.

Legal Research

Law Library Guide

Australian Legal System