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Law Making - SI
Statutory Interpretation
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What are the two key approaches to statutory interpretation? | Literal and purposive |
| What are the three rules which could be used for statutory interpretation? | Literal Rule, Golden Rule, Mischief Rule |
| What is the literal rule? | give the words their plain, ordinary, or literal meaning (even if they lead to a manifest absurdity... Lord Esher R v City of London Court) |
| Advantages of the literal rule | gives certainty and precedent |
| Whiteley v Chappel | D used voting card of a dead person, found NG as literal rule used |
| LNER v Berriman | Railway worker killed doing maintenance work. Company provided no look out when 'relaying or repairing line', literal rule used, found NG |
| What is the basic application of the Golden Rule? | Look at literal, and choose 'better' of two meanings to avoid absurd interpretation. |
| What is the wider application of the golden rule? + quote | court may modify the words of the statute to avoid a 'repugnant' outcome. 'feeble parachute' Zander |
| Re Sigsworth | he inherits if literal rule applied, but repugnant, so court interpret they inherit unless children murdered parent |
| What is the Mischief rule? | Heydon's Case - court consider what 'mischief' parliament intended to remedy, and interpret to prevent 'mischief'. Restated in Jones v Wrotham Park |
| What must there be, before the mischief rule can be applied? | must be possible to determine the mischief, apparent that parliament failed to deal with it, able to state additional words |
| Corkery v Carpenter | D drunk in charge of a 'carraige' - interpreted to include bicycle through mischief rule |
| Smith v Hughes | Street offences Act 1959 - mischief rule applied so that 'street' includes the area in the street |
| Eastbourne BC v Stirling | car parked on taxi rank not 'street', mischief rule applied so that he is guilty of 'plying for hire in any street' |
| Adler v George | 'vicinity' = area around or entire area including inside. Literal rule gives absurd outcome, so golden rule applied |
| RCN v DHSS | Abortion Act 1967: abortions done by 'registered medical practitioner'. HL ruled nurses could also through purposive, dissenting judges took literal approach |
| Fisher v Bell | Flick knives in shop window - illegal but ITT not offer so NG (literal) |
| What statute aids Judge's interpretation? | Interpretation Act 1978 |
| Intrinsic Aids | Definitions, long/short titles, marginal notes/explanatory notes, presumptions |
| Extrinsic Aids | Dictionary, Other legislation/case authority, hansard, Interpretation Act, law reform institutions reports |
| Cheeseman | man caught exposing himself in public lavatory, dictionary used 'passenger' = 'passer by', so cheeseman not convicted |
| Laroche v Spirit of Adventure | extrinsic aids used to interpret hot air balloon as an 'aicraft' |
| What is hansard? how can it be used? | official record of everything said in parliament, judges can use it to see the intention behind an Act e.g., pepper v hart |
| Pepper v Hart | First case to allow judge's access to hansard |
| key arguments against the use of hansard | (1) Reasoning difficult to determine through text (2) not representative (3) issues may not have been discussed |
| key arguments for the use of hansard | (1) may give clarity for meaning of ambiguities (2) favours a purposive approach (3) other extrinsic aids like dictionaries used |
| Why do we need statutory interpretation? | ambiguous words, Errors in legislation (loopholes), New developments (acts outdated), Changes in use of language |
Created by:
Oscar.G
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