Statutory Interpretation Flashcards
What is statutory interpretation?
Involves the judges applying an Act of Parliament to an actual case
What are the 4 rules on statutory interpretation?
Literal Rule
Golden Rule
Mischief Rule
Purposive Approach
What’s the literal rule?
Courts will give words their plain ordinary meanings Can lead to a 'manifest absurdity' Whitely v Chappell LNE Railway v Berriman Fisher v Bell Cheeseman v DPP
What’s the golden rule?
Modification of the literal rule
Ignores literal meanings of words if it would lead to an absurd outcome
What are the 2 types to the golden rule?
Narrow and wide approach
What is the narrow approach of the golden rule?
Where a word has two or more meanings
If one could lead to an absurd outcome the court can choose between them
Adler v George
What is the wide approach of the golden rule?
Words have only once clear meaning but would lead to a ‘repugnant situation’ or would go against public policy
Re Sigsworth
What’s the mischief rule?
Consider what the common law was before the act was made and what the problem was for it to be made
And what was the remedy and the reason for it
Smith v Hughes
Royal College of Nursing v DHSS
What’s the purposive approach?
Allows judges to look at the purpose of the law and what they believe Parliament is trying to achieve
Required to consider the context in which the law was made
R v Registrar - General, ex parte Smith
Jones v Tower Boot
R v Bentham
Advantages of the literal rule.
Encourages Parliament to be more precise and clear when passing legislation
Judges can ‘blame’ Parliament if they have to make bad decisions because they are only doing what they’re told to do
Makes the law more certain so lawyers can better advise clients
Disadvantages of the literal rule.
It is not possible to word an Act so that it covers every situation (Whitely v Chappell)
Words may have more than one meaning and make the Act unclear
Following the words exactly can lead to unjust decisions (LNE Railway v Berriman)
Advantages of the golden rule.
Puts Parliaments true intentions into force by allowing more interpretation of words (Adler v George and Re Sigsworth)
Still respects Parliamentary Supremacy by allowing judges to correct errors whilst not actually deciding what Parliament decided
Disadvantages of the golden rule.
Only used on rare occasions and hard to predict use
Hard to define what counts as ‘absurd’ which is subjective and can give Judges too much discretion
‘Febal parachute’ Michael Zander
Advantages of the mischief rule.
Promotes the purpose of the law by allowing judges to look back at the gap in the law that the Act was designed to cover (Smith v Hughes)
More likely to produce a ‘just’ result as Judges can interpret the law the way it was meant to work
Disadvantages of the mischief rule.
Does not respect separation of powers as judges are interpreting what they think Parliament meant and they can get it wrong and they can interfere with public policy
Can make the law uncertain as it is difficult to predict what the law will decide
Only looks back to when the Act was created
