Statuary Interpretation

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Luke Wellings

Statuary Interpretation

Statutory law is law that has been made by parliament. For a statute to be passed it need to go through the House of Commons, House of lords and finally has to get the Royal Asset this is technically when the monarch must give their consent before legislation can become law but however in practice that consent is never refused.

Parliament is the highest source of English law “sovereignty of Parliament” (also known as The supremacy of Parliament) this means that any law that has been passed in parliament according to the correct procedures of parliament has to be followed and applied in the courts.

The relationship between Parliament and the judiciary is very complicated, Parliament cant tell judges how to do their job, but the judges must respect and obey the laws passed in parliament and they can not change or rewrite law passed in parliament and they can not make their own laws. The relationship that exists between parliament, the judiciary and the government is explained by Montisques theory of the Doctrine of separation of powers:

The English System                                         Montesques ideal System

Sometimes parliament passes legislation that can become a big problem for judges because they are badly written and are ambiguous because of the wording used. The judiciary has to come up with a way of interpreting statues to make the law fair to everybody and to respect the “Sovereignty of parliament” the three rules of interpretation that the judiciary uses are the literal rule, the golden rule and finally the Mischief rule.

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The literal rule this rule is the rule that is respecting the wish of parliament the most compared to the other two rules. The reason that this rule is most respectful to parliament is because the judge if they use this rule is taking the literal meaning of the words; therefore reading the legislation in the way parliament intended it to be used.

An example of a case in which a judge used the literal rule is the Fisher V Bell (1961) case. This case involves the Restriction Of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 in the case a shop owner ...

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