Coordinator:  Associate Professor Peter Rush    Telephone:  83444759    Office:   Room 0814    Email:   Click here to email Peter Rush

 

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites

Prerequisites: Legal Method and Reasoning, Principles of Public Law or equivalent subjects

Generic Skills

Description

The subject studies the legal categories, judicial culture, and socio-historical contexts through which the contemporary attribution of criminal responsibility takes place. The topics covered in this subject include:

• theories of criminal law and of the role of criminal law in society;
• the formal structure of substantive criminal law;
• the institutional arrangements of criminal procedure and their respective rationales;
• the law of homicide (murder and manslaughter);
• the law of the non-fatal offences against the person (common assault, causing injury offences, rape and other sexual offences, stalking, endangerment and other supplementary offences);
• the law of self defence and of necessity;
• the doctrine of intoxication;
• the law of property offences (theft and obtaining by deception offences);
• the law relating to strict and absolute liability offences;
• the law of complicity and attempts; and
• the law of criminal procedure (arrest, summons and court processes).

Throughout each of these topics, the emphasis is on both the theories and practices of criminal law. 

Points: 12.5

Mode of delivery: Seminars and Guest Lecture Program

Contact hours: Two 2-hour seminars per week & 5 guest lectures

Estimated Total Time Commitment: 144 Hours