STATUTORY LEGISLATION

Statutory Legislation

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Statutory Legislation

Background

In order to ensure consistency in interpreting legislation and to resolve ambuity appearing in statues, courts use specific rules. Those rules are known collectively as rules of statutory interpretation.  Different rules of interpretation may be applied and depend upon the nature of the ambiguity and the content in which it arises.

Courts often find themselves in a difficult position as they play no role in the passing of legislation which they will subsequently be required to interpret. Therefore, courts will strive to achieve a sensible meaning to the statute where at all possible. (Slapper, 2008, 1)

Golden Rule

 The Golden Rule was developed to overcome the shortcomings of the Literal Rule. It states that if the use of the Literal Rule leads to an absurdity, the court is allowed to find other meanings by adapting the language of a statute. However, this may lead to the objection that the rule is erratic as there is no guidance as to what an absurdity. Zander describes it as “an unpredictable safety-valve to permit the courts to escape from some of the more unpalatable effects of the literal rule”. Furthermore, it is argued that using the Golden Rule would in effect allow judges to create “man-made” laws.

Judicial Decision Making

 Since both the Literal and Golden rules are not ideal for judicial decision making the Mischief Rule, called the Purposive Approach nowadays, is employed. Courts ought to interpret statutes in the sense as to what mischief the law is trying to regulate. The Rule is designed to get courts to consider what the true intentions of Parliament were at the time the Act was passed. This is now the dominant interpretive rule that judges employ as it helps to avoid absurdity and injustice, and promotes flexibility. Yet there are still questions posed by this approach, the main question being where the court should look to discover 'the mischief'?

The Need For Statutory Interpretation

The need for statutory interpretation Members of the public tend to believe -- and judges do not always act to correct the misconception -- that judicial decision-making follows strictly logical principles. The logic involved may be complex, it is argued, but ultimately the job of the judge is to bring about a rational outcome based on logical analysis of the information available. This point of view is erroneous, and necessarily so. Human languages simply do not lend themselves to a detailed, logical expression. Even if they did, practicality would forbid the creation of total rigorous statutes. Stauatory interpretation is very important as it gives members of the public and judges a sense of rationality to take decisions.

There are many trivial ambiguities in ordinary English phrasing that are unproblematic in everyday speach, but troublesome in legal contexts. Trivial linguistic issues like this are now handled by the Interpretation act 1978. It states a number of elementary grammatical presumptions such as, for example, the equivalence of masculine pronous ('he', 'his') and feminine ones, and the equivalence between singular ...