statutory interpretation - civil Flashcards
Define Statutory interpretation
Statutory Interpretation involves the role of judges when trying to apply an Act of
Parliament (also known as a statute) to an actual case.
List reasons statutes may be problematic / cause issues.
-The wording of the Act may seem to be clear when it is drafted and checked by
Parliament, but it may become problematic in the future.
-The English language can be ambiguous. This leads to many problems. Some words
have more than one meaning or mean different things when a punctuation mark is
added or if read in a different context!
-The Parliamentary Draftsmen may have to rush a law through and not think about all
the consequences, as in the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 (the words ‘types’ and not
‘breeds’ was incorrectly included and challenged in the case of Brock v DPP (1993),
or well worded statutes may become problematic in the future due to social or
technological advances as in Royal College of Nursing v DHSS (1981).
Define the Literal rule
This is a Victorian approach where judges take the ordinary, literal and natural
meaning of the words and applies it to the case, even if the results are not very sensible.
List the 4 approaches/rules Judges may use to interpret the law.
Literal
Golden
Mischief
Purposive
Describe Features of the literal rule
The courts will often make use of a dictionary
This is probably the most common rule of interpretation used by courts and is the least controversial.
Judges that support this rule of interpretation believe that it is simply not their job change the wording of an Act of Parliament.
The theory behind the rule is that Parliament are supreme and therefore, only they
should change the law. If the wording of a law is wrong, parliament should change it.
This approach, however, is heavily criticised as it has led to injustice in cases.
What did Lord Esher say in 1892 about the literal approach?
If the words of an act are clear, you must follow them, even if they manifest absurdity.
Literal approach case examples:
HINT:
-☠️📩
-🚉
-🧀
Whiteley vs Chapel:
A statute made it illegal to impersonate any person entitled to vote. The defendant was using the identity of a dead person to vote.
It was Held that the D was not guilty under the literal rule, as a dead person is literally not entitled to vote.
LNER V Berriman:
A railway worker was killed whilst doing maintenance. His wife tried to claim compensation under the Fatal accidents Act. HELD: The claim failed as the act stated this only applied whilst ‘repairing or relaying’ the track which did not literally cover maintaining the track.
Cheeseman vs DPP:
The D was witnessed masturbating in a public toilet by two police officers. According to the town police clauses act 1847, it is an offence to willfully and indecently expose his person in a street to the annoyance of passengers. the word in question was what is a ‘street’ and whether the police were ‘passengers’.
HELD: The dictionary states a street is any public place but passengers could not be the police as they were stationed at the time so the D could not be arrested under these circumstances.
Define the Golden Rule
This approach is a modification of the literal approach. This means that the judge will start by following the literal interpretation, giving the words their ordinary meaning, unless this would lead to an absurd or unjust result.
Features of the golden rule:
2 options for an ap
