The Various Approaches a Judge May Use to Decide the Meaning of a Statute

The Various Approaches a Judge May Use to Decide the Meaning of a Statute

When a judge comes to deciding upon a case he must apply the necessary

legislation, and although it is drafted clearly and with great detail,

problems can sometimes arise in the interpretation of what the actual

law is. Sometimes the problem can be that the language of the statute

could be misunderstood, or not clear enough to what is actually meant.

For example, in the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861, it was

stated that, 'whosoever, being married, shall marry any other person

during the life of the former husband or wife shall be guilty of

bigamy.' But what does the word marry mean?

The problems arise when information is misinterpreted, and there are

three reasons why this may occur-

1) The statute is complicated and of a difficult mixture of ordinary

and technical language

2) It may be concerned with the regulation of future conduct, and as

the ability of draughtsmen to anticipate the future is limited, it

will be difficult to decide whether a particular provision applies to

a particular case

3) It is often concerned with regulating competing interests where the

people concerned have a self interest in promoting different

interpretations

It is up to the courts, and therefore the judges, to decide the

definitive definition when these problems arise.

To help judges in interpreting statutes, most contain an

interpretation section defining some of the terms used in that

particular statute e.g. In the sale of Goods Act 1979 the word

'delivery' is written to mean the voluntary transfer of possession

from one person to another. The Int...

... middle of paper ...

...identify the precise purpose of the legislation. The Law Commission

1969 actually made some recommendations to remedy this:

a) Marginal notes should be available to the courts

b) Official documents should be available not only to identify the

defect, but also the remedy

c) An explanatory memorandum should be attached to the statute for the

guidance of the courts, consisting of three documents:

1) The pre-amble

2) The explanatory document prepared for M.P's

3) Detailed briefings prepared for ministers

All these regulations, though, help the courts in ways of making

legislation more specific and making the interpretation easier to make

with as much aid as possible. By giving judges these aids assures that

the outcome will be fair and rightly based on the legislation that

Parliament wanted to create.