1 / 7

Statutory Interpretation in a nutshell

Statutory Interpretation in a nutshell. Literal Approach. The Literal Approach gives words their ordinary grammatical meaning LNER v Berriman: Not ‘relaying or repairing’ track but oiling points (maintenance)

adamdaniel
Télécharger la présentation

Statutory Interpretation in a nutshell

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Statutory Interpretation in a nutshell

  2. Literal Approach The Literal Approach gives words their ordinary grammatical meaning LNER v Berriman: Not ‘relaying or repairing’ track but oiling points (maintenance) • Leaves law-making to Parliament / respects democracyBUT assumes every Act will be perfectly drafted – Fisher v Bell • Makes law more certain BUT can lead to ‘unfair’ decisions or absurd results –LNER v Berriman

  3. Purposive Approach The Purposive Approach looks for the purpose of Parliament and interprets words accordingly. Jones v Tower Boot Co: ‘In the course of employment’ included racial harassment that happened at work even though it was not part of the work • Leads to justice in individual cases BUT makes law less certain • Fills in the gaps in the law BUT leads to judicial law-making • Broad approach covers more situations BUT difficult to discover the intention of Parliament

  4. Literal rule – words are given their ordinary grammatical meaning. • Whiteley v Chappell: D was found not guilty of impersonating [someone] entitled to vote when he impersonated a dead man, as a dead person is not ‘entitled to vote’. • Golden rule – the best interpretation of ambiguous words can be chosen to avoid an absurd result. • Allen: ‘Marry’ = ‘go through a ceremony of marriage’. Narrow version. • Re Sigsworth: Son not allowed to inherit from mother because he murdered her. Wider version. Three rules of interpretation • Mischief – looks at the gap in law prior to the Act and interprets words to ‘suppress the mischief’. • Smith v Hughes: Prostitutes calling from a house to men in the streets were soliciting ‘in a street’.

  5. Ejusdem generis – For a list of words followed by general words, the general words are limited to the same kind of items as those in the list Powell v Kempton Park Racecourse: all the ‘places for betting’ listed were indoors, so the place mentioned had to be indoors too. It was not and so was not affected by the statute Expressio uniusexclusio alterius – To mention one thing / some things is to exclude other things. If there is a list, but no general words, then only the items in the list are included Tempest v Kilner: only ‘goods, wares and merchandise’ were affected by the statute, because only they were mentioned – not stocks or shares Three rules of language Noscitur a sociis – Consider the context: words cannot be considered in isolation. They are known by the company they keep IRC v Frere: ‘interest, annuities or other annual interest’ affected only annual interest, not any other sort

  6. Intrinsic aids Anything within the Act itself: Preamble Long title Definition sections Other sections Objectives section (if there is one) Schedules Extrinsic aids Matters outside the Act: Previous Acts on the same point Earlier case law Dictionaries, including those of the time when the act was passed Hansard – Pepper v Hart Law Commission reports – Black Clawson International treaties, etc. – Fothergill v Monarch Airlines Aids to interpretation

  7. Step-by-step problem-solving in statutory interpretation • Define literal approach. Tell the reader it includes three rules of interpretation • Try literal, golden and mischief rules in turn • If a sensible result is achieved, stop; if absurd, go on to the next • Use the rules of language to help you with each rule of interpretation, and possibly internal aids • Purposive approach: define • Try the purposive approach, using both internal and external aids NB Always explain fully what you are doing, using case examples

More Related