This chapter complements Chapter 3 in Government Accountability: Australian Administrative Law, third edition, which investigates the various classes of executive power, both statutory and non-statutory. The vast majority of executive power is conferred by statute. The extracts emphasise the importance of statutory interpretation when establishing the scope of express and implied powers. The final two extracts consider prerogative power.

This chapter complements Chapter 3 in Government Accountability: Australian Administrative Law, third edition, which investigates the various classes of executive power, both statutory and non-statutory. The vast majority of executive power is conferred by statute. The extracts emphasise the importance of statutory interpretation when establishing the scope of express and implied powers. The final two extracts consider prerogative power.

This chapter focuses on the policing of minor offending in China. In contrast with political policing, where law may be present but is not essential, legal regulation has become increasingly important in defining and regulating the policing of minor offending. This chapter examines the significance of this strengthening commitment to legality. Do commitments to legality regularise police power and give institutional form to a people-centred approach to policing? I conclude that rather than constraining police powers, legal reforms have enacted a police-centred model of empowerment. Do differential commitments to legality in policing explain the difference between political and ordinary policing? This chapter concludes that the distinction between political and ordinary policing is not clear, as the concept of legality itself is permeated by and supports (rather than contests) fundamental principles of Party leadership and its core ideological commitments, as well as reflecting the pragmatic objectives of governing social order and maintaining political control.