statutory interpretation

• what are the 4 rules of statutory interpretations?

  • literal rule
  • golden rule
  • mischief rule
  • purposive approach
• literal rule is when courts will give words there plain, ordinary and literal meaning - whiteley v chappell ‘entitled to vote’
• golden rule is a modification of the literal with both a wide and narrow approach - adler v george ‘in the vincity of’
• mischief rule is allowing the judge to look for the problem/‘mischeif’ the act was trying to fix - laid down in heydon’s case
• what do judges look at in the mischief rule?

  • common law
  • mischief
  • remedy
  • true reason
• the purposive approach looks at the intention and aims of the act - jones v tower boot co
• statutory interpretation is the process by which a court looks at a statute and determines what it means
• what are the three rules of language?

  1) the ejustdem generis rule

  2) expressio unius est exclusio alteruis

  3) noscitur a sociis
• the ejusdem generis rule is where the general words are limited to those similar in the list - powell v kampton
• expressio unius est exclusio alteruis is the express mention of one thing that excludes others - R v inhabitants of sedgley
• noscitur a sociis is when a word is known by the company it keeps - muir v keay
• examples of intrinsic aids : interpretation section, the long title, preamble, subheadings, schedules
• examples of extrinsic aids : dictionary, textbooks, hansard, treaties, previous case law
• human rights act 1998 is used in statutory interpretation with

  s3-interpret in line with human rights law as far as it is possible

  s4- declaration of HRA incompatibility for a compelling reason
• hansard is the daily record of the parliamentary debate during the passage of legislation
• pepper v hart permitted the use of hansard in limited circumstances
• wilson v secretary of state for trade and industry established hansard could be used for the meaning of words but not for general debates
• davis v johnson said hansard should be used to interpret law not parlimentary discussion to stop the separation of powers being affected
• they need to do statutory interpretation due to ambiguous terms, broad terms, changes in language and error