E28 – Statutory Interpretation part 1 (Monologue)
This episode is part of the English Legal System (Module 2): Sources of Law Course.
🗒️ About this episode:
‘The laws passed by Parliament…should be clear and easy to apply. However, sometimes this isn’t the case and instead, the wording is unclear and ambiguous….the courts cannot simply apply the law… instead they must interpret it. But how do they do this?’
In today’s episode we’re looking at how courts interpret legislation. First, we’ll look at why courts must interpret legislation, and then go on to look at the different rules of construction and interpretation as well as looking at aids to interpretation. We learn specifically about:
- The literal rule;
- The golden rule;
- The mischief rule;
- The purposive approach;
- The impact of Human Rights legislation on interpretation;
- Intrinsic/Internal and extrinsic/external aids to interpretation.
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- This episode is part of the English Legal System (Module 2): Sources of Law Course.
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18th September 2018 @ 07:46
A listener asked the question of whether judges use extrinsic aids in the literal approach. My response is this:
With the literal approach, judges interpret words literally, they may use an extrinsic aid such as a dictionary but they are unlikely to use something else as this would be beyond the literal approach.