Statuary Interpretation

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:

[IMAGE]The English System Montesques ideal System

[IMAGE]

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.

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