INTERPRETATION OF STATUTES(LW -4013)

TOPIC :CASE STUDY ON THE RULE OF CASUS

PREPAPRED BY:
ANANNYA BERA

ROLL NO-1682017
BBA LLB(A)
 CASE NAME :Gladstone v Bower [1960] 2 QB 384

BRIEF FACTS

It was a 1959 case in the English Court of Appeal, concerning security of tenure in tenancies
of agricultural holdings. It arose from what was then thought to be a lacuna in
the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948.Under the AHA 1948, a tenancy for a term certain of less
than a year would be converted to a year-on-year tenancy by the operation of s2, and a
tenancy for a term certain of two to five years would be converted to a year-on-year tenancy
by the operation of s3.[1] In Gladstone v Bower, the term certain was eighteen months.

RULE APPLIED

The rule applied in the case is the rule of “Casus Omissus” of interpretation and its has been
further explained in detail about the rule.

EXPLAINATION OF THE RULE

Casus Omissus, literally means case omitted. It is basically a situation not provided for by a
statute or contract and therefore governed by case law or new-judge made law. When a
statute or an instrument of writing undertakes to foresee and to provide for certain
contingencies, and through mistake, or some other cause, a case remains to be provided for, it
is said to be a casus omissus.It is a canon of construction, requiring the court to draw up
principles of statutory construction, which are then going to be followed by subsequent
judges in their judicial decisions. Casus Omissus can be said to be a gap in a statute.The
classic rule is that courts will not fill the gaps in statutes – their function is jus dicere non
facere that is to declare or decide the law. It is an application of the principle that a matter
which should have been, but has not been provided for in a statute cannot be supplied by
courts, as to do so will be legislation and not construction. But there is no presumption that
a casus omissus exists and language permitting the court should avoid creating a casus
omissus where there is none.
 APPLICATION OF THE RULE

The act in section 23 , which applied to a tenancy from year to year , provided that notice to
quit shall be invalid if it purported to terminate the tenancy before the expiration of 12
months from the end of the then current year of tenancy. Sec 2(1) applied the same provision
to cases where land was let for an interest less than a tenancy from year to year and by sec
3(1) provision was made that a tenancy for a term of two years or more was to continue after
expiration of the term as a tenancy from year to year. These provisions of thr Act decided the
court of appeal, did not cover the case of tenancy for 18 months which terminated on expiry
of the term without a quit notice. The act so interpreted applied to tenancies for two or over
two years , from year to year and under one year, but not to those between one and two years.
There was no apparent reason why they should not have been included by the legislature.
Devlin l.j pointing out that this was apparently casus omissus, observed :” the court will
always allow the intention of a statute to override the defects of wording but the courts ability
to do so is limited by recognized canons of interpretation. The court may, for example prefer
an alternative construction which is less well fitted to the words but better fitted to the
intention of the act. But here, there is no alternative construction, it is simply a case of
something being overlooked. We cannot legislate for casus omissus.”

DECISION OF THE COURT

The Court of Appeal held that because neither s2 nor s3 of the 1948 Act applied, the tenancy
expired at the end of the fixed term and the landlord was entitled to recover possession.

After the decision, the presiding judge (Diplock J) expected that the law would be changed.
As he put it, "If it were permissible to speculate at large as to the intentions of Parliament, I
should be tempted to guess that Parliament simply overlooked the case of a lease for a fixed
term of between one and two years." He felt that Parliament could not possibly have intended
to confer security of tenure on both lettings of less than a year and more than two years, but
to leave out lettings for terms in between. However, Parliament expressly excluded such
agreements from security of tenure in the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976,
the Agricultural Holdings Act 1984 and the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986. After 1959,
agricultural tenancies for terms of this period became known as Gladstone v Bower
agreements, under which the landlord need not serve a Notice to Quit to end the tenancy, but
if the tenant were allowed to hold over, he might obtain statutory security.The Agricultural
Tenancies Act 1995 has superseded the previous Acts and new Gladstone v Bower
agreements can no longer be created.

CRITICAL APPRAISAL

This rule of interpretation goes very well and it is kind of similar to the rule of
“judicis est jus dicere, non dare” which simply means the power of the judges is to interpret
the laws and not to legislate a law. Hence judges are not given the power to bring a new
legislation if they find something is omitted in the statue. Hence the principle of casus
omissus is such that it is negated from the beginning that the legislature can omit a case hence
the judges cannot enact upon something which is not provided by the legislation. Such is the
situation in this case where the judges could understand an apparent case of casus omissus yet
their hands were tied, because even if there is Casus Omissus in a statute the language of
which is otherwise plain and unambiguous, the court is not competent to supply the omission
by engrafting on it or introducing in it under the guise of interpretation by analogy or
implication, something which it thinks to be general principle of justice and equity. To do so,
would be entrenching upon the preserves of the legislature. The primary function of a court of
law being jus dicere and not jus dare.The will of the legislature as a supreme law of the land
and demands perfect obedience. Judicial power is never exercised for the purpose of giving
effect to the will of the judges always for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the
legislature, or in other words, to the will of the law . Therefore, where the legislature clearly
declares its intent in the scheme of a language of the statute it is the duty of the court to give
full effect to the same without scanning its wisdom or policy and without engrafting, adding
or implying anything which is not congenial to or consistent with such express intent of the
lawgiver.

The law is what the judges interpret the statue to be, not what the experts in their monopoly
of wisdom assert it to be. The duty of Court is to construe the law as it stands, and not to
make a new, though it may be better law. It is quite true that in interpreting a statute, to meet
the obvious intention of the legislature, a construction may be put upon it which modifies the
meaning of the words and even the structure of the sentences, but that is allowed only where
the court is coerced to do so to avoid some serous injustice or to prevent a statute from being
reduced to a nullity, or for any other similar reason. No court is competent to proceed upon
assumption that the legislature has made a mistake, because there is a strong presumption that
the legislature does not make mistakes. Hence, this is an idle case which illustrates this rule
of interpretation and the helplessness of the judges, though significant changes were made
after this judgement and it become one of the landmark case.