The statement made above is true to a certain extent. The legal system in the United Kingdom is mainly based on The Doctrine of the Separation of Powers, which is written in the 18th century by a French philosopher called Montesquieu. Montesquieu, believed that in order to have a ‘fair’ legal system, the functions should be divided into 3 different bodies of power in a state. This was to prevent absolute power in either one person or a body of people. He believed that by giving one person or a body of people absolute power the state would be in danger of people having the ability to abuse this power and it would eventually lead to a dictatorship. To ensure that this would not happen, he suggested to separate the functions into three …show more content…
Judges have the ability to interpret almost any statue in several different ways, using the nature of language and by giving some words in a statue meaning. When applying statutory laws, judges try to find out the intention of parliament when passing the law. In order to interpret the meaning of a statue, the courts have developed several ‘rules’. These rules can be divided into 3 categories:
• The Literal Rule
• The Golden Rule
• The Mischief Rule
When the literal rule is applied the words in a statute are given their ordinary and natural meaning Fisher v Bell (1960). The golden rule is an extension of the Literal Rule and is applied when the use of the literal rule would give an ‘absurd’ result, which according to the judge, could not have been intended by Parliament. The judge can substitute and slightly stretch the meaning of the words in a statute Adler v George (1964). The Mischief Rule requires judges to consider three factors:
• What the law was before the statute was passed
• What ‘mischief’ the statute was trying to correct
• What remedy Parliament was trying to provide
The court then applies the interpretation which will correct that weakness or mischief Smith v Hughes (1960).
Another form of statutory interpretation is The Purposive Approach. This
The court observed that the ‘legal meaning’, i.e. meaning the legislature is taken to have intended, may not correspond to the literal or grammatical meaning. As four justices put
1a) With reference to the source, describe the measures that exist to maintain the independence and neutrality of the judiciary.
Together with, the Constitution of the United States likewise designed a strong government by establishing a national court system. This helped the government become more secure by having equal justice under law for every citizen including the president. In the document Powers of the Federal it presents the judicial powers and the supreme court. It states, “this branch interprets and ruled the actions of the other branches” (Document 2). This shows that the judicial branch has the ability to run each case according to the law it violated, without the influence of outside factors. Founding a national court system preserved and interpreted the law. Also, this demonstrates that having a court system help the government by equivalent laws enforce
1. When interpreting legislation, the Courts use several approaches to aid their interpretation. Describe how the literal, golden and mischief rules of interpretation operate.
(b) R v Secretary of State for Transport, ex p Factortame Ltd (No.1) [1990] AC 85 and (No.2) [1991] 1 AC 603
Merit –compare and contrast the role of judges ,lawyers and lay people within the English courts.
This essay will discuss the role of the magistrate and jury in the English and Welsh legal decision-making process. It will assess both the advantages and disadvantages of both mechanisms and give an opinion on the contribution they make in the process.
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
The judicial selection process can be complicated at times, and different states have different stipulations as to what needs to be required to be a judge. In recent years, proposals have been introduced by legislators, governors, courts, and citizens' groups in nearly every state to limit the role of politics in the selection of state judges (global reach com, 2016). In numerous states, there is more than one method used when it comes to selecting a judge. The judicial process in the state of Alabama requires special schooling and obligations to become a judge. Judges in Alabama are selected in the partisan balloting (globalreachcom, 2016). The Alabama Constitution implements necessary qualifications before an individual is selected to be a judge.
This week the Legal Theory Lexicon entry focuses on "ambiguity" and "vagueness"--two important [!] concepts of the theory of interpretation. Some legal texts are ambiguous--they can have two or more distinct meanings. And some legal texts are vague--they use concepts that have indefinite application to particular cases. And some legal texts are both vague and ambiguous--they have multiple meanings, some (or all) of which have indefinite applications. Because "vagueness" and "ambiguity" are basic concepts in the theory of interpretation, it's significant to master each of them and to see the dispute between them.
The United States government consists of three main branches: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. Within the contents of this essay, the judicial branch will be examined. The judicial branch of the United States government oversees justice throughout the country by expounding and applying laws by means of a court system.1 This system functions by hearing and determining the legality of such cases.2 Sitting at the top of the United States court system is the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of the United States encompasses the federal judiciary, explicitly the judicial branch. This court is comprised of life-long serving Justices who are selected by the President of the United States and approved by the Senate.3 Cooperatively,
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
Question Number or Title: It has been consistently argued that the judiciary in England and Wales is not reflective of society. Critically consider the explanations for the lack of diversity within the judiciary and the extent to which government legislation and initiatives have tried to increase diversity within the judiciary?
The court’s decision was based on a variety of different reasonings. One of the foundations of the decision was the Latin maxim qui haeret in litera, haeret in cortice - ‘he who adheres to the letter, adheres to the bark,’ meaning that the substance of a writing is sacrificed if the interpretation of the words is taken too literally, and in the case of Riggs v Palmer [1889], the intention of the lawmakers was paramount. The court carried the notion that a statute holds within it the intention of the law-makers just as much as the words itself, and jointly that the words within a statute are not legitimate unless they are the intention of the writers. It was noted by the court that while the existing statutes are first and foremost in place to enable testators to ensure that their assets are distributed post-death as desired, it must be acknowledged that in no way would it have been the intention of the law-makers during the drafting
In order to decide if the offense prescribed by the Registration of Offenses Weapons Act, 1959 has been committed in these three scenarios or not, the literal, golden or the mischief rule of statutory interpretation has to be applied (Australian Law Students Association, 2009).