Superior and Inferior Courts
Superior Courts are those with, originally, unlimited jurisdiction to hear disputes and are the highest courts in their section of the Australia court hierarchy. They hear disputes in most areas of law and are only limited by legitimate legislation. These are the Supreme Courts, in each state and territory, and the High Court of Australia for the country generally. Each is created as part of the Constitution of Australia, or for the Supreme Courts, by the Constitution of that state or the Self Government Acts for the ACT and the Northern Territory. The rule of law is a doctrine stating equality before the law.
Inferior Courts are secondary to Superior Courts. Their existence is from legislation and their powers are the opposite of Superior Courts: they only have the power to decide on matters where parliament grants them the power to do so. Decisions in inferior courts normally (but not always) can be appealed to the Superior Court in that area (e.g., from a District Court to a Supreme Court; or from the Federal Magistrates' Court to the Family Court of Australia or Federal Court of Australia).
Read more about this topic: Australian Court Hierarchy
Famous quotes containing the words superior, inferior and/or courts:
“The momentary charge at Balaklava, in obedience to a blundering command, proving what a perfect machine the soldier is, has, properly enough, been celebrated by a poet laureate; but the steady, and for the most part successful, charge of this man, for some years, against the legions of Slavery, in obedience to an infinitely higher command, is as much more memorable than that as an intelligent and conscientious man is superior to a machine. Do you think that that will go unsung?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If it is the result of a pure love, there can be nothing sensual in marriage. Chastity is something positive, not negative. It is the virtue of the married especially. All lusts or base pleasures must give place to loftier delights. They who meet as superior beings cannot perform the deeds of inferior ones.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the U.S. for instance, the value of a homemaker’s productive work has been imputed mostly when she was maimed or killed and insurance companies and/or the courts had to calculate the amount to pay her family in damages. Even at that, the rates were mostly pink collar and the big number was attributed to the husband’s pain and suffering.”
—Gloria Steinem (20th century)