Statutory Interpretation Of The Law Of Interpretation

The literal rule is the traditional English approach, if a court follows the literal rule they are complying with the exact words of parliament, thereby upholding the key constitutional principle of parliamentary sovereignty which says the courts cannot challenge what parliament has passed. The purposive approach however seeks to get away from the artificial consideration of language and to instead seek to find the purpose behind the act. However, it does not fit well with the idea of parliamentary sovereignty. The courts have the ability to say what they think Parliament meant rather than just applying the words of an

Statutory interpretation is required where complication and ambiguity arises as to what the section actually provides and to whom is within the provisions. There are numerous occurrences where judges call for statues to be interpreted further in more depth; such as failure of legislation to cover a point, a broad term, drafting

Statutory interpretation is the legal process whereby a judge applies a statute to a case and must give meaning to the words in the statute in order to decide what they mean and how it should be applied to a particular case. When interpreting statutes, the judges’ role is to put into effect the Parliaments wishes. Conflicts may arise when deciding if the intention of Parliament can be found in the words of the statute itself or whether judges should acquire into the purpose of the Act then interpret the words themselves. In order to interpret these

agencies today are increasingly reliant on the third type of rulemaking due to both the cumbersome nature of the formal rulemaking process and the ease with which information can be disseminated to the public through the Internet. Generally, there are two categories of deference that courts grant an administrative agency’s interpretation of law, depending on the categorization of the administrative action in question. If agency action amounts to formal rulemaking, it is analyzed using a two-part test established in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc. If the agency action does not constitute formal rulemaking, courts use the factors established in Skidmore v. Swift & Co. to determine if deference should be granted.

When the Supreme Court must analyze an agency's interpretation of statutes, the Court applies the two-step

Statutory interpretation is process of interpreting statutes by the judges. The definition of statutes have had very specific words but indeed the judges would still need the statutory interpretation to help them. The reason of this, even how, the words in the statutes are specific but sometimes the words contains ambiguity and vagueness in words. On top of that, each word could give us different meaning. For example, we can find in the Oxford Dictionary where a word would contain at least one meaning. Hence, without the statutory interpretation, a lot of judges would have trouble in deciding their judgments in deciding a case. This essay will analyse the four rules, intrinsic aids and extrinsic aids and presumptions in the interpretation

1. When interpreting legislation, the Courts use several approaches to aid their interpretation. Describe how the literal, golden and mischief rules of interpretation operate.

Formalism in law refers to “the claim that well-crafted rules embodied in authoritative texts will contain

Within the rule of law there are formal and substantive theories. Firstly, a formal theory literally is ‘shape’. Meaning what is the shape or form of law? The ‘form’ of law is

The expectation from our judges that they will always act objectively in making their decisions is correct but only to a certain extent. By using the theories of interpretation and judicial decision-making of both Dworkin and American Legal Realism, it is evident that a balancing act occurs between objective judgments and interpretation and subjective judgments and interpretation. Often, subjective judgments are the most dominant to a large extent. One must look at the ideas of Dworkin in terms of considering that judgments have aspects of both objectivity and subjectivity. One must also look at the ideas of American Legal Realism where subjectivity plays a gigantic role in judgments leaving objectivity with little or no influence

to the law. The rule of law often is stated to be one of the

The most influential definition of the rule of law is that of the A.V. Dicey. In his work he defines the rule of law to be composed of three central elements. The first element states that “no man is punishable or can be made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary courts”. This element is designed to deny to governments any rights to make secret or arbitrary laws, or retrospective penal laws, and to limit the discretionary powers of government” . In order to comply with the requirement, it is stated that the rule must be open, clear, accessible and certain. This is supported by Lord Bingham as he argued that the law must be accessible, clear and predictable as wide discretionary powers would lead to arbitrariness which is against the rule of law. This principle is further illustrated by

Rule of law in simplest terms means law rules, that is, law is supreme. The term “Rule of law‟ is derived from the French phrase “la principle de legalite” (the principle of legality) which means a government on principle of law and not of men. Rule of Law is a viable and dynamic concept and, like many other concepts, is not capable of any exact definition. It is used in contradistinction to rule of man. Sir Edward Coke, the Chief Justice in King James I‟s reign is said to be the originator of this principle. However, concrete shape was given to it by Professor A.V. Dicey, for the first time in his book “Law of the Constitution” (1885) in the form of three principles.

The Rules of the Statutory interpretation are The literal rule (IRC v Hinchy, 1960), the golden rule(R v Allen, 1872), The mischief rule (Smith v Hughes, 1960) and The Ejusdem generis rule (Powell v Kempton Racecourse, 1899) The golden rule of statutory interpretation may be applied where an application of the literal rule would lead to an absurdity(R v Allen (1872) LR 1 CCR 367). This is law/ legislation, which has been enacted by Parliament and through administrative process. The law enacted by Parliament is known as an Act of Parliament.

The enactment of both interim and final Constitutions ushered in a new approach to statutory interpretation. In this essay I argue that the statement made by the court in Daniels v Campbell 2003 (9) BCLR 969 ( C ) at 985 is TRUE.