Statutory Intepretation
Exam Answers
Question 1
Statutory Interpretations is the process by which Judges interpret Acts of Parliament in cases.75% of cases heard by the Horse Of Lords are concerned with Statutory Interpretation .When it is called upon to deal with a problem of interpretation ,the Court does two things here. Translation is what happens first, here they decide what the word means, then secondly they apply the correct meaning to the situation in question and decide on the results (in terms of the intention of parliament when passing the law.
In many instances when we are interpreting words, there will be one obvious meaning, however even with the simplest of words there will be other possible meaning. Therefore to achieve constituency, judges and legal authorities have established guiding principles of interpretation to help them in determining the actual meaning of legislation. These guiding principles are collectively known as the Three Primary Rules of Statutory Interpretation .These are; 1)The Literal Rule 2)The Golden Rule 3)The Mischief Rule. However these rules are not fixed or followed logically, as they are not really rules at all but approaches.
The first apptroach is the Literal Rule. This rule States that Words should be constructed according to the their plain , ordinary and literal meaning, regardless of whether it produces an absurd outcome or not. The rule is founded on the assumption that the words used were carefully chosen by Parliament to convey their intentions. Therefore this rule is important for preserving the intention of Parliament and ensuring the democratic parliamentary will is imposed by judges in courts.
Lord Diplock in the Duport Steel v Sirs case (1980) defined the rule as “Where the meaning of the statutory words is plain and unambiguous it is not then for the judges to invent fancied ambiguities as an excuse for failing to give effect to it’s plain meaning because they consider the consequences for doing so would be inexpedient,
Question 1
Statutory Interpretations is the process by which Judges interpret Acts of Parliament in cases.75% of cases heard by the Horse Of Lords are concerned with Statutory Interpretation .When it is called upon to deal with a problem of interpretation ,the Court does two things here. Translation is what happens first, here they decide what the word means, then secondly they apply the correct meaning to the situation in question and decide on the results (in terms of the intention of parliament when passing the law.
In many instances when we are interpreting words, there will be one obvious meaning, however even with the simplest of words there will be other possible meaning. Therefore to achieve constituency, judges and legal authorities have established guiding principles of interpretation to help them in determining the actual meaning of legislation. These guiding principles are collectively known as the Three Primary Rules of Statutory Interpretation .These are; 1)The Literal Rule 2)The Golden Rule 3)The Mischief Rule. However these rules are not fixed or followed logically, as they are not really rules at all but approaches.
The first apptroach is the Literal Rule. This rule States that Words should be constructed according to the their plain , ordinary and literal meaning, regardless of whether it produces an absurd outcome or not. The rule is founded on the assumption that the words used were carefully chosen by Parliament to convey their intentions. Therefore this rule is important for preserving the intention of Parliament and ensuring the democratic parliamentary will is imposed by judges in courts.
Lord Diplock in the Duport Steel v Sirs case (1980) defined the rule as “Where the meaning of the statutory words is plain and unambiguous it is not then for the judges to invent fancied ambiguities as an excuse for failing to give effect to it’s plain meaning because they consider the consequences for doing so would be inexpedient,