Statutory interpretation

Statutory interpretation may be required when the meaning of the legislation enacted by the Parliament is unclear. This may occur due to many reasons such as; legislation failing to consider a specific point, a broad term being used to cover numerous possibilities , ambiguity, a drafting error, new technological developments, and changes in the use of language over time. In this essay I will attempt to answer whether statutory interpretation gives unelected judges unprecedented power to determine the meaning of words in legislation enacted by the democratically elected parliament. Over the years judges have developed approaches and rules of interpretation as guidelines in determining the meaning of the Acts of Parliament; the literal rule (approach), the golden rule, the…

Judiciary. A judge’s role is to simply apply the law to a case brought to them and to explain the law to a jury in criminal matters. According to J.A.G Griffith the traditional view of the judiciary is to decide disputes in accordance with the law and be impartial .While all three bodies have their role, some would argue that Judges trespass on the functions of the other bodies when exercising their decision making power. This is demonstrated through the courts use of Statutory Interpretation. …

However, traditional common law approaches still have relevance today, as the interpretation acts do not cover everything in relation to statutory interpretation. The two most relevant traditional common law approaches that are used in statutory interpretation are the literal approach and the golden rule…

What was the mischief and defect for which the common law did not provide? What was the remedy proposed by Parliament to rectify the situation? What was the true reason for that remedy?” A case which illustrates the mischief rule is Leadbetter v Hutcheson 1934. In this case the accused was charged with fishing during the annual close times specified in section 6 of the Tweed Fisheries Amendment Act, 1859. To establish the mischief rule, the court considered the four questions stated above…

An agency’s judicial review provisions and procedures for adjudication are often laid out in an enabling statute and Congress defines the agency’s actions and determines how their actions may be challenged. The determination of whether it is constitutional for an agency to replace the meaning of the Supreme Court with its own reading of the statute is often questioned. The Supreme Court may apply rules of statutory interpretation to the agency. The statutory interpretation is a process in which…

Noting Justice Scalia’s work on Constitutional interpretation, two competing approaches will be discussed. According to Justice Scalia, there are four approaches to Constitutional interpretation: Textualism, Strict Constructivism, Legislative intent, and Living Constitution. However, the most prominent approaches to Statutory and Constitutional interpretation are textualism and living Constitution. Justice Scalia makes a case for textualism. He explains in his essay “A Matter of Interpretation,”…

Historically, parliament should make the law and judges simply apply the law, this fits in with the separation of powers theory. Blackstone 's dictation theory also states this. Judges create law by precedent and statutory interpretation. Under the Literal Rule judges have very little scope for judicial creativity as they are limited to giving words in the Act of Parliament their plain, ordinary, grammatical meaning from a standard English dictionary, this means judges are following the exact…

Regulations will normally become the law in all of the EU member states immediately after they come into force, not requiring any implementing measures and overriding conflicting domestic provisions. Directives will require all member states to comply with and achieve a common result, but it is up to each country to decide how best to implement these directives. The European Court of Justice will ensure that the application and interpretation of EU laws do not differ between member…

The separation of powers is divided into three government organs thus; executive, judicial and legislature. Mainly in this section we shall examine the legislature and the judiciary .it is the role of parliament to create laws, it is the duty of judges to explain what the parliament meant. They are many reasons why statutes may be interpreted, there may be a lot of ambiguity and vagueness in the context used. Judges mainly carry out the process of interpretation in four ways, by using materials…

the time. Lastly, it lacks guidelines as there is no criteria that judges need to follow apart from the fact it avoids an absurd result. What the law commission report had to say about the golden rule is that it sets a ‘purely negative standard, by reference to absurdity, inconsistency, or inconvenience, but provides no clear means to test the existence of these characteristics or to measure their quality or extent’. This means we are looking at the failing of parliament where they would have…