Mischief Rule

• Heydon's Case [1584]

  1. What was the common law before the act was made?
  2. What was the mischief and defect for which the common law didn't provide?
  3. What was the remedy Parliament created to cure the mischief?
  4. What was the reason behind the remedy?
• And so judges should make such construction as shall suppress the mischief and advance the remedy. - Lord Coke
• Smith v Hughes [1960]


  Street Offences Act 1959

  Ds were prostitutes who were calling out to people from their flats.

  Ds found guilty despite being on private property.
• Royal College of Nursing v DHSS [1981]


  The Abortion Act 1967

  Ds were nurses, not a registered medical practitioner

  Mischief: backstreet abortions so Ds not guilty
• Mischief


  an old word that in law, means crime or prohibited activity
• The Mischief Rule


  A way of interpreting statutes that focuses on the activity that Parliament were trying to stop when they made the Act.
• The Mischief Rule might involve abandoning the words of the Act entirely
• Remedy


  Means Act of Parliament
• Construction 


  Means interpretation
• Street Offences Act [1959]


  It is an offence for a common prostitute to loiter or solicit in a street or public place for the purposes of prostitution.
• The mischief Parliament intended to address with the SOA 1959 was people being harassed by prostitutes so to stop the mischief Ds in Smith v Hughes were found guilty.
• Lord Parker ’s judgement in Smith v Hughes 


  this was an act intended to enable people to walk along the streets without being molested or solicited by common prostitutes.

  it matters little where the prostitute is soliciting because in each case her solicitation is projected to somebody walking in the street.
• The Abortion Act [1967]


  A person shall be not guilty of an offence under the law relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner
• In Royal College of Nursing v DHSS protecting the nurses would help stop the mischief so Ds were not guilty.
• Registered medical practitioner

  1. Doctor
  2. Surgeon
• 2 Judges dissented in RCN v DHSS 1981

  1. Lord Wilberforce
  2. Lord Edmund-Davies

  They said that to allow nurses to fall under the definition of registered medical practitioner was redrafting the Act with a vengeance, which they weren’t prepared to do.
• DPP v Bull [1994]


  A man was charged under the Street Offences Act 1959.

  D not guilty, the mischief it intended to stop was female prostitution