When the first fleet arrived in 1788 it raised the question of what laws applied in this new colony ? The obvious solution was to adopt the laws of the mother country - and so any transgression of English law became a punishable offence in Australia.
As time passed the administration passed new laws that were applicable to another continent on the other side of the globe and these were tacked on to the base English law that is still the root of the law system today. For many decades the final outcome of law challenges were decided by an appeal to the Privy Council in London.
The problem is that some very strange laws are still lurking in the fine print adopted by some of the states and territories, and while these have probably never been used here - neither have they been cleared off the statute books.
Such a matter has raised it's ugly head in the Northern Territory. It seems that Territorians are still subject to the 1735 Witchcraft Act. A person accused of witchcraft can be convicted and sentenced to one year in prison, but along with incarceration comes a procedure that was once common in the villages of " Merry Olde England .
Every three months the law required the Prisoner to be taken to the market square - and placed in " the stocks ". This was a device which secured the prisoners hands and head and the objective was to subject that person to ridicule - and allow the villagers to pelt him or her with eggs or vegetables and inflict humiliation on " the witch " !
There are moves to rescind this three hundred year old law, but it raises the question of what other relics of the past are still legally enforceable if some smart lawyer chooses to delve into our archaic law archives ?
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