The Golden Rule Flashcards
What is the Broad approach?
Where the words have a clear meaning, but that meaning leads to an absurd or repugnant result. The court can modify the words of the statute to avoid the problem.
What is one advantage and disadvantage of the Golden Rule?
The Golden Rule can avoid absurdity, but can make the law less certain.
What is the Golden Rule?
It starts by looking at the literal meaning of words in an Act, but if using that literal meaning would produce an absurd or unjust result, then the court can use the Golden Rule to avoid it.
What is the Narrow approach?
If a phrase has 2 or more meanings, the judge can choose between those meanings to select the most appropriate meaning to fit the case.
What is a case for the Narrow approach?
R v Allen.
What happened in the case of R v Allen?
D tried to marry a woman while being married already. He was charged with Bigamy in the OAPA 1861.
What does the OAPA 1861 say about bigamy?
It said it was a crime to marry again whilst the original wife was still alive.
What are the two definitions of ‘Married’?
- To be legally married
- To go through a wedding ceremony.
What did the courts do in R v Allen?
The court chose the second meaning, as it would be impossible to ‘legally’ marry 2 people because that would be bigamy. Therefore the court chose the definition that would make D guilty.
What is a case for the Broad approach?
Re Sigsworth.
What happened in the case of Re Sigsworth?
D killed his mother to gain his inheritance; because she had no will, this meant that the Administration of Estates Act 1925 went into effect.
What does the Administration of Estates Act 1925 say?
Where no will was left, the inheritance should go to the next of kin/issue.
How did the courts rule in Re Sigsworth?
The court thought it would be absurd if D could benefit from killing, so said it should be assumed the wording of the Act meant ‘unless D killed his mother’. Therefore, D was not given the inheritance.
