Legal Analysis and Critique

This text provides a legal analysis and critique on various topics such as logical fallacies, liberalism, UK's legislative body, Australian history, positivism, and Australian government's aim to decrease tobacco usage. It also includes references for further reading.

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Legal Analysis and Critique

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Table of Contents
Question 1..................................................................................................................................3
Question 2..................................................................................................................................3
Question 3..................................................................................................................................4
Question 4..................................................................................................................................5
Question 5..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................7

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PART A
Question 1
The definition of logical fallacies states the modes where the rules of logic are
neglected, people can often fall into inaccurate and invalid reasoning (Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy,2015). It is “an error in reasoning” and not error of facts. Fallacies of relevance
are the attempts made for proving a conclusion by making consideration offers which do not
bear any kind of truth. An example is personal attacks which is an attempts made with the
intention of discrediting an opinion by further discrediting the person that holds that opinion
(Yap, 2013). Fallacy of evidence, also called argument from ignorance, is the assumption of a
fact or conclusion that is based on lack of evidence (Gee, 2010). It is also described as
“absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. For instance, there are many things in the
world which cannot be proven. One of them can be filling the moon with spare ribs. A
reasonable person would realize that such a thing is not possible.
Question 2
Liberalism is the ideology of cultural, economic and governmental equality and
liberty (Bell, 2014). It is considered “left-wing”. In political terms, liberalism means the
ideology of concepts such as legal rights, the use of reason, tolerance, freedom of speech,
thought, worship and association, basic civil liberties and rights, appreciation of mixed-
democracy and separation of the powers of government (Bell, 2014). There are certain
features of classical liberalism. It absolutely focuses on the supreme form of interests of
individuals or individualism (Brennan &Tomasi,2012). Every individual is treated a
separately who seeks at maximizing his interests energetically. Classical liberalism argues for
independent activities in the field of economics (Brennan &Tomasi,2012). It implies that
imposition of restrictions upon the various economic activities of people would not be the

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government’s policy. Another hallmark feature is negative freedom (Brennan
&Tomasi,2012). For the all-round development of people’s qualities, it would be reasonable
for them to be left alone. Critical analysis of liberal ideas is important for building emotional
bonds and developing clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, consistency, and reasons.
Question 3
UK’s legislative body is its Parliament and is the primary institution that makes the
law in it’s constitutional monarchy. The legislative body’s history meets in the Westminster’s
Palace in London, showing its organic evolution that was partly in response to UK’s reigning
monarch’s needs (Jones,2012). The Parliament traces back to the early meetings of English
commoners and barons of eighth century. It traces back from eighth century’s Anglo-Saxon
governments. The first English parliament was summoned in 1215, with the creation of the
Magna Carta, which brought the establishment of the barons’ (wealthy landlords) rights for
serving as consultants to the king on matters of government in the king’s Great
council(Jones,2012). From 1603 to 1660, UK was involved in a civil war, where Oliver
Cromwell was the military leader and held the title of the Lord Protector. In 1649, the ruling
monarch, Charles I was executed(Jones,2012).
Question 4
The last two centuries of the Australian history have been contributed by property
developers who are on an unloved entrepreneurs’ class (Milsom, 2014). From the time of the
High Court’s judgement of Australia in the Mabo vs Queensland case, contemporary
Australia’s attention has been captured by indigenous legal issues like never before (Weir,
2012). The history of Australia on which it was raised, proceeded on the basis of contingent
indigenous rights, as to both over-rule and recognition by the Crown, was shaken by the
disclosure that jurisprudence common law has recognized indigenous rights many centuries

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ago which has arisen from a deep-rooted source which was outside the common law. The
native title act has brought about changes in the common law by giving rights to oppressed
and the neglected class who have suffered heavily in the past. Discriminations were created
before, but now all are eradicated.
Question 5
Positivism is a philosophical system which only recognizes the things which can be
verified scientifically or that are capable of mathematical or logical proof (Hart, 2017).
Hence, positivism is considered to reject theism and metaphysics. It is a philosophical theory
which implies that specific kind of knowledge is based on certain natural phenomena and
their relations and properties (Hart, 2017). It can be said that according to positivism, law is a
social construction and not invisible in the legal parlance as commented by Head. It is not
claimed by legal positivism that the identified laws should be obeyed or followed, or that
there is specific value in having identifiable and clear rules (Raz, 2013). In fact, the state can
sometime be illegitimate and the legal system’s laws can be unfair. Consequently, there may
be no liability for these laws to be followed.
PART B
Question 1
The Australian government is aiming to decrease the usage of tobacco and form a statute with
this regard to make the make the people aware of the dreadful effects of smoking. The
packing of tobacco products would be altered with warning signs (Wier, 2012). The aim of
the government is to reach a goal under COAG national Healthcare Agreement to decrease
the smoking rate by 10%. The reason of the tobacco lain packaging act of 2011 is to the
reduce the attraction of packaging and the attraction of the customers to it (Scollo et al.,
2015). The aim is under to under the ill effects on health by reading the warnings and further

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to abstain from it. These aims would also contribute towards the statistics of the world health
organization. The aim to protect the public health is of utmost importance.
Question 2
The case of Walker v R took place between Walker and the state of New South Wales (1994)
HCA 64; 182 CLR 45. The facts stated that the plaintiff was an indigenous person who
charged with a criminal offence under law of NSW (Fookes & Gilmore, 2014). The place of
occurrence was Nimbin under the Bandjalung area possessed by indigenous people. It was
questioned whether the statute applied to people to the extent to which it was applied. The
issues arose that whether the NSW legislature were empowered to make laws for the welfare
of the NSW people. Whether it could be applied to specific inhabitants of NSW. It was
decided by the judge Manson CJ that the rule of law states that all person are equal. There
must be a uniform common criminal law for all.

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References
Bell, D. (2014). What is liberalism? Political Theory, 42(6), 682-715.
Brennan, J., & Tomasi, J. (2012). Classical liberalism. The Oxford Handbook of Political
Philosophy, 115.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (2015). Support SEP. Fallacies.
[online]Retrieved from: <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/>
Brown, D., Farrier, D., Egger, S., McNamara, L., Steel, A., Grewcock, M., & Spears, D.
(2011). Brown, Farrier, Neal and Weisbrot's Criminal Laws: materials and
commentary on criminal law and process in New South Wales
Fooks, G., & Gilmore, A. B. (2014). International trade law, plain packaging and tobacco
industry political activity: the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Tobacco control, 23(1), e1-
e1.
Gee, J. (2010). Egyptologists’ fallacies: fallacies arising from limited evidence. Journal of
Egyptian History, 3(1), 137-158.
Hart, H. L. A. (2017). Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals. In Law and
Morality (pp. 63-99). Abingdon: Routledge.
Jones, C. (Ed.). (2012). A Short History of Parliament: England, Great Britain, the United
Kingdom, Ireland and Scotland. Boydell Press.
Milsom, S. F. C. (2014). Historical foundations of the common law. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Raz, J. (2013). Legal positivism and the sources of law. Arguing About Law, 117.
Scollo, M., Lindorff, K., Coomber, K., Bayly, M., & Wakefield, M. (2015). Standardised
packaging and new enlarged graphic health warnings for tobacco products in

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Australia—legislative requirements and implementation of the Tobacco Plain
Packaging Act 2011 and the Competition and Consumer (Tobacco) Information
Standard, 2011. Tobacco control, 24(Suppl 2), ii9-ii16.
Weir, J. K. (2012). 1. Country, Native Title and Ecology1. country, native title and ecology,
1.
Yap, A. (2013). Ad hominem fallacies, bias, and testimony. Argumentation, 27(2), 97-109.