Unit Synopsis
LAWS12061 Administrative Law examines the legal rules, principles and procedures applied by the courts and administrative tribunals to review and check the exercise of executive power and the legality of administrative (executive) action and decision-making, especially insofar as they affect the rights, interests and legitimate expectations of individuals and the public. It also looks at the constitutional, statutory, common law and equitable remedies available against invalid executive action and decision-making. Topics you will study in this unit include: the organisation and structure of the administration; administrative law theory; common law and statutory avenues of judicial review at Commonwealth and State level; grounds of judicial review; remedies; crown immunity; the Administrative Appeals Tribunal; statutory review; and Freedom of Information. This unit meets the LPAB requirements for administrative law.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 2 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 4 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Prerequisites: 24 credit points of Law units including LAWS11057. Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 3 - 2025
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Group Discussion | 10% |
| 2. Practical Assessment | 40% |
| 3. Examination | 50% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 2 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 75.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 20.83% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: Tutor Reflection
Dealing with the change in law
From T2 in 2025, enough material on the Administrative Review Tribunal (the newly formed administrative tribunal) will be available. As such lecture material for week 4 will be changed to deal predominantly with the ART.
Completed
Source: Student feedback
Group work
This course will start to release assessments in week 1 as opposed to week 3 so as to help facilitate the formation of groups and make group work as productive as possible.
Assessment will be reviewed for 2026
Source: Tutor Reflection
Incorporation of more theoretical content
Tutorials and lectures will from 2025 begin to include some theoretical content to help ground student understanding of key concepts.
The textbooks have some coverage of this. The materials will be reviewed before the unit runs again in 2026.
Source: Student surveys
Students seek more opportunities for useful feedback.
Assessment to be changed to include an interactive oral assessment that provides better opportunities for feedback.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Apply and critique the legal rules and procedures applied by the courts and administrative tribunals to review the legality of administrative (executive) action and decision-making.
- Analyse and apply the range of remedies available against invalid executive action and decision-making.
- Work individually and in groups in an effective, professional and reflective manner to develop persuasive oral and written arguments.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Group Discussion | • | ||
| 2 - Practical Assessment | • | • | • |
| 3 - Examination | • | • | • |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | |
| 5 - Team Work | • | ||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | ||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | • | ||
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | ||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |