During your legal studies, you’ll learn a lot of facts. Some of these will be relevant to every day life, some of them will be used to impress a stranger at a bar, and some will only be useful on a charity trivia night.

In all seriousness, you should be racking up as many facts as you can to store in your head for the exams. Sometimes the quirkier ones stick around the longest, and they may prove to be the most valuable.

  1. Iceland abolished slavery in the year 1117. It is the first country in the world to do so.

  2. Until 2014, people in NSW could use a defence to murder commonly known as “gay panic defence.” So, in the eyes of the law, you could have your murder charge lessened to manslaughter if you successfully claim that someone of the same sex made an unwelcome, non-violent, sexual advance towards you. Until 2014. We had gay panic defence. Until 2014.

  3. The age of criminal responsibility in Australia is 10. It is 7 in Singapore and 15 in Poland. The UN recommends that the minimum age of criminal responsibility should be 12.

  4. Ban Ki-Moon is the Secretary General of the UN. He was born in South Korea and studied at an American University. Ki-Moon speaks French, English and Korean. What a legend.

  5. Until the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996, it was legal to carry an AK47 but it was illegal to be gay in Tasmania.

  6. Australia does not provide its citizens with explicit, express, constitutional freedom of speech, despite what you may think.

  7. The International Labor Organisation estimates that 27 million people are currently enslaved world wide.

  8. The money thrown into the Trevi Fountain in Rome makes around 18,000 Euros each month, and the money collected goes to various organisations improving human rights, such as Caritas and the Italian Red Cross. It is also illegal to steal from the fountain.

  9. The ICC has been functioning since 2002, it has racked up over $1 billion in expenditures and has only ever convicted 2 people – both Congolese warlords.

  10. In 2013, 8 juveniles in custody completed their HSC in NSW.

Looking for some more help with Legal Studies? You can ask us anything and a Band 6 Legal Studies student will give you the best answer they possibly can.

Looking to get your legal essays marked? Click here!