Statutory Interpretation

Then moving on further to the approaches, there are types- the common law approach and the civil law approach. The common law refers to the literal approach. Where as the civil law approach refers to the purposive approach.

In particular too much use has been made in the past of the literal rule at the expense of a more purposive approach. The three so-called rules- literal, golden and mischief are not rules at all, since there is no compulsion to apply them. More over there is no consistency of application when they are applied. There is no set order of priority. In one case the court will apply the literal rule and in another it will apply the mischief rule. Sometimes the court does not identify which rule it is applying. The presumptions may be criticised similarly. For instance, there is no rule about which presumption should be applied where two of them conflict. Some of the limitations on the use of extraneous material restrictive.

There are some judicial efforts, notably done by Lord Denning, to improve interpretative techniques. Writing- extra judicially, Lord – Denning agrees the object of statutory interpretation is to discover the intention of the parliament. But he argues that the actual words used in the statue are only the starting point and not the finishing point. He preferred the purposive approach to the literal. He aired his view regarding the Nothman v London Borough of Barnet (1978) that; the literal method is completely out dated, in all the cases of interpretation of statues such a construction will be adopted that will promote the general legislature purpose underlying the provision.' It is no longer necessary for the judges to wring their hands and say- There is nothing we can do about it. Whenever a strict interpretation of a statute gives rise to an absurd and unjust situation, the judges can and should use their good sense to remedy it- by reading words in if necessary- so as to do what Parliament would have done, had they had the situation in mind.' However in 1979 when the case reached the House of Lords, Lord Denning's approach was criticized. Thus the purposive approach to the interpretation of domestic legislation received little judicial support at the time.

Moving on further in Pickstone v Freeman (1988) regulations approved by Parliament and designed to fill a gap in the English equal pay legislation were found on a literal reading, to be inadequate for filling that gap. A literal approach would have left the UK in breach of its treaty obligations to give European Community Directives. The House of Lords held that, in the circumstances, it was permissible to give a purposive construction to the regulations so as to make them comply with European Community Law. In order to achieve the manifest purpose of the regulations, and to give effect to the clear but inadequately expressed intention of Parliament, it was decided that certain words must be read into the regulations by necessary implication- even though that entailed departing from the strict , literal application of the words which Parliament had chosen to use. It was accordingly held, that a female employee, employed on work of equal value to the work of a male employee doing a different job for the same employer, was entitled, under the Equal Pay Act 1970, to claim equal pay with that man not withstanding the fact that there was another made employee doing the same work as her for the same pay.

Therefore in conclusion the real distinction lies in the balance to be struck, in a particular case between the literal meaning of the words on one hand and the context and purpose of the measure in which they appear on the other. Frequently there was no opposition between the two, and then no difficulty would arise.