Statutory Interpretation Flashcards
Literal rule
Judges give words in statutes their plain ordinary grammatical meaning, whatever the consequences. Lord Esher MR summed it up as follows in R V Judge of the City of London 1892: “if the words of an act are clear, you must follow them even though they lead to a manifest absurdity”
Whitely V Chappell (L)
D was charged under a statute which made it an offence to impersonate any person ‘entitled to vote’. D had pretended to be a person whose name was on the voters list, but who had died. The court held that D was not guilty since a dead person is not ‘entitled to vote’
LNER Railway Co. V Berriman (1946) (L)
The D railway Co was under a statutory duty to keep a look out on duty when their emplyoees were ‘repairing or relaying’ the line. Berriman was killed by a train whilst maintaining (oiling) the line. There was no look out on duty. His widow was not entitled to compensation because the court held that maintaining was not covered by ‘repairing or relaying’
Fisher V Bell (1960) (L)
D was a shopkeeper who displayed a flick knife marked with a price in his shop window. He was charged under a statute for making an ‘offer for sale’ of the flick knife. There is a technical meaning of ‘offer for sale’ from contract law, under which putting an article in a shop window is not an offer to sell, but an ‘invitation to treat’. The court used the literal rule and applied the technical legal meaning of ‘offer for sale’ from contract law. This meant D was not guilty of making an ‘offer for sale’
Golden rule
Lord Wensleydale in Grey V Pearson (1857): the grammatical ordinary sense of the word is to be followed until it would lead to some absurdity, or some repugnance, or some inconsistency, in which case the grammatical meaning of the words can be modified so as to avoid the absurdity, but no further
The narrow version
Where words are capable of having more than one meaning, the meaning that is least absurd should be used
Allen (1872) (GN)
D charged with bigamy under s.57 offences against the person act, which provides that ‘whosoever being married shall marry again’ commits an offence. The law on marriage already stated that if you’re married then any second marriage was void. Meaning that if the literal rule was used no one could ever be convicted of bigamy. Court decided this would be absurd and applied to ‘golden rule’ and the word marry could have another meaning of ‘to go through a ceremony of marriage, and D was convicted
Adler V George (1964) (NG)
D was caught inside an RAF base where he was staging a protest. He was accused under a statute with obstructing a member of the armed forces ‘in the vicinity’ of the base. His defence was that as he was inside the RAF base he could not be ‘in the vicinity’ as this meant ‘near to’. The court held that to apply the normal meaning of in the vicinity of would he absurd and held that it could mean near to or near to and within, and chose the second meaning to secure a conviction
Wide version
Can be used to avoid a repugnant. It does not require that the words have more than one meaning, just that the court finds the literal meaning unacceptable
RE Sigsworth (1935) (GW)
A son had murdered his mother. The mother had not made a will, so normally her estate would have been inherited by her issue according to the rules set out in a statute. There was no ambiguity in the words of the act, but it would be repugnant to murderer benefit from his crime, so despite the clear wording of the act it was held that he could not inherit his mothers estate
Mischief rule
Hey dons case (1584): and provides bag judges should use the following factors when interpreting a statute:
- What was the common law before the statute
- What problem or mischief was the statute trying to remedy
- How did parliament try the remedy the mischief
Mischief rule
Judges should then interpret the statute in such a way as to put a stop to the mischief. The courts look at the wording in the act but are also willing to look outside the act to its social and historical context and extrinsic aids for meaning e.g. Hansard and law reform reports
Smith V Hughs (1960) (M)
to interpret the offence of a prostitute ‘soliciting in a street/public place’. One had been attracting customers from a balcony and the other had been from a window on a ground floor. The court decided that they had been rightly convicted because the mischief aimed at by the statute was to enable people to walk along the street without being harassed by prostitutes. So the statute was interpreted to stop this ‘mischief’. The women could be seen from the street
Royal college of nursing V DHSS (1981) (M)
There was a statute which provided that a lawful abortion could be carried out by a ‘registered medical practitioner’. This clearly conveyed doctors, but what about nurses? Advances in medical science meant that from the early 1970s surgical abortions by doctors were largely replaced with abortions using drugs by nurses, without a doctor being present. On appeal, the majority of judges interpreted the relevant statute to stop the mischief of illegal abortions where no medical care was available and allow nurses to carry out abortions in a hospital
Purposive approach
Requires the court to work out the general purpose of parliament in passing the act and then interpret the act to fulfil that purpose. No particular ‘mischief’ has to be found
Margor and St Mellons V Newport (1951) lord denning stated:
“We do not sit here to pull the language of parliament to pieces and make nonsense of it, we sit here to find out the intention of parliament and carry it out by filling in the gaps and making sense of the enactment
Coltman V Bibby tankers (1978) (P)
A statute imposed liability on an employer for the death of an employee caused by defective ‘equipment’ supplied by that employer. The victim died when a ship he was working on capsized because it had a defective hull, and the court had to decide whether a ship was ‘equipment’. The relevant act contained a definition section which definite equipment but this did not refer to a ship. The court held that equipment could include a ship because the general purpose of the act was to make the employer liable for hard caused by defects in anything provided by them
R V Registrar-General, Ex Parte Smith (P)
D was a violent murderer who had mental health problems. He had already killed a cell mate in the belief that it was his adoptive mother. He then tried out the identity of his natural mother which he was entitled to under the adoption act 1976. The registrar general refused despite him being entitled to the information under the unambiguous wording of the statute. The court held that it could never have been the purpose of parliament to pass a law that could help a possible crime and upheld the decision to the information
Ejusdem generis (general rule)
Where a list of words in a statute is followed by general words, then the general words are limited to the sake kind of items as those in the list
Powell V Kempton Park Racecourse (1899) (GR)
D was charged with keeping a ‘house, office, room or other place for betting’. He had been operating betting outside at a race course. The court decided that the general words ‘other place’ had to refer to indoor places since all the words in the list were inform places and so D was not guilty
Context rule
Word takes on meaning from other words around it. Involves looking at other words in the same section or at other sections in the statute
Bromley London borough council v greater London council (CR)
Issue was whether GLC could operate a cheap fare scheme on their transport systems, where the amounts being charged meant that the transport system would run at a loss. The decision in the case revolved around the meaning of the word ‘economic’. The court looked at the whole statute and, in particular, at another section which imposed a duty to make up any shortfall as far as possible. As a result they decided that ‘economic’ meant being run on business lines and so ruled that the cheap fares policy was unlawful.
Specific rule
Where there is a list of words which is not followed by general words, then the statute applies only to the items on the list
Tempest V Kelner (SR)
Held that the phrase ‘goods, wares and merchandise’ in a statute did not cover stocks and shares
Intrinsic aids
Clues within the statute itself that may help to make its meaning clearer
The short and long title of the statute
Long title is good for mischief and the purposive approaches in that it may give clues as the the purpose of the statute e.g. Law of property act. Short title gives very little away, but the long title explains that the statute is bringing together all the previous statutes relating to conveyancing
Preamble (introduction to statute)
Older statutes often have a preamble that may provide a useful indication of the purpose of the act/mischief in the common law the act was trying to remedy, modern statutes do not tend to have them or only contain a brief one
Definition sections
Set out lists of what meanings are intended for certain words used elsewhere in the statute and are relatively modern drafting technique
Extrinsic aids
Materials which are outside a statute which the judges may use, together with the various approaches to interpretation, to help them interpret the statute
Authorised dictionary of the year the statute was passed
This is useful for the literal rule
