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Statutory Interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Alida Wilson
Alida Wilson*
Affiliation:
University of Aberdeen
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Extract

The interpreter of a statute ought not, tempted by extraneous considerations, to force the meaning of words or phrases against a reasonable understanding or against the clear intention of the statute as a whole. He ought not, influenced by the tendency of legal practitioners to favour precise and narrow signification, to assume that precise and narrow signification is necessarily the most proper for words or phrases which are found difficult.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 62 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1987

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References

1. In his Statute Law (2nd ed, 1983) and Statutory Interpretation (1984).

2. Statute Law (2nd ed, 1983), Introduction and chapters their mentioned.

3. Ibid, pts II and III, especially pp 257–9.

4. Ibid, p 15.

5. Ibid, pt II. Chapters 10–15 are concerned with difficulties; chs 16–18 with defects.

6. Statutory Inferpretation, pp 199 and 211.

7. Ibid, p 200.

8. Ibid, p 199.

9. See n 6 above.

10. Statutory Interpretation, p 213, sec 93.

11. The Judge (Oxford, 1981), pp 1–17, especially pp 14 ff.

12. Ibid, pp 14, 17.

13. Cf p 76 below on ‘economy’ and ‘economic’.

14. [1961] 1 QB 394, [1960] 3 All ER 731.

15. [1961] I QB 394 at 399.

16. [1972] AC 342, [1972] 1 All ER 105.

17. [1983] 2 AC 309.

18. [1983] 1 AC 768.

19. Statute Law (2nd ed, 1983), pp 198 IT.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid, p 257.

22. [1972] AC 342 at 354, 360, 364, 366, 367 respectively.

23. [1983] 2 AC 309.

24. See Education Act 1962 s 1(1).

25. Alan Parker, Ordinary Residence, The Politics of Interpretation (thesis approved in the University of London, 1984), pp 35 ff.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid, pp 37–41, and 75.

28. Ibid, pp 42–44.

29. [983] 2 AC 309.

30. The Closing Chapter (London, 1983), pp 102 ff.

31. DES circular 1/78, L1 35/45/018C, quoted by Parker, op cit, p 41.

34. [1983] 1 AC 768.

33. The Closing Chapter, p 136.

34. For the Act, see 20 Halsbury's Statutes (3rd ed) 822, 824, 825, 829.

35. See n 32 above.