Q1.

’ the interpretation of the statutes is a craft as much as a science and judges, as skilled
workers, select and apply the appropriate rules as the rules of their trade’. Describe the rules
of interpretation and explain how and why judges use these tools.
Ans. The Parliament (P) enacts the statutes and the judiciary is the one who interprets the
statutes. The judiciary derives the intention of the Parliament as stated in the case of Sussex
Peerage Claim. As per A.V Dicey, statutes receive half of their meanings by interpretation
of statutes by the judiciary hence, it would not be wrong to say that interpretation of statutes
is a craft and a skill which only the judiciary possess and we agree that judiciary is the one
who is the most skilled in making as well as interpreting the statutes. We shall be discussing
the different rules of interpretation and language which the judiciary uses as their tool as
well as influence of European Union’s (EU) as Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA).
Having said that the judiciary is skilled in interpreting the law, there is however another fact
that the judiciary may face difficulties in interpreting the statutes as stated by Francis
Bennion that due to following reasons, the interpretation becomes difficult ;1. Changes in
language over time, 2. Use of inadequate words, 3. Broad terminologies and 4. Unforeseen
developments. Hence, to make the interpretation easy, the courts made 4 rules of
interpretation which not only promotes certainty but also consistency in the cases. the first
rule of interpretation is the “Literal Rule” in which the judiciary interpret the meaning of
the words by the ordinary dictionary meaning even if it promotes absurdity as it was said by
Lord Esher that “ if the words of the Act are clear, it should be followed even if it leads to
absurdity”. An example of the case in which Literal rule was applied was in the case of R V
Maginnis in which the defendant was sued for having drugs in the car which was his friend’s
drugs, Misuse of Drug Act however, the courts held that in the Act, the word “supplying” is
used and the Defendant was not supplying the drugs hence the defendant was not held liable.
The literal rule was also used in the case of R V Harris where the defendant was not held
liable as he “bit” the victim on the nose and did not “ cut, stab or wound”. Similarly, the
same was done in the cases of Fisher V Bell and R V Brown.
We shall now be talking about the second tool which the judges use for interpreting the law
which is the “Golden Rule” in which the judges incorporate certain words to make the
statutes fair and avoid absurdity as this rule is the modification of the literal rule. in the case
of Re Sigsworth, a son killed his mother for the property however, in the statutes it was
mentioned that the property of the deceased will be passed on to the “next of kin” however,
to promote fairness, the courts incorporated words in the statute and held that the property
of the deceased will only be passed on to the next of kin if he has not killed the deceased.
Similar changes were also made in the case of Grey V Pearson.
moving on to the third rule of interpretation which is the “Mischief Rule” in which, the
judiciary tries to identify the “mischief” which the Parliament was trying to curb while
enacting the statutes. This rule was used in the case of Smith V Hughes where according to
Street Offences Act, the prostitutes were not allowed to solicit in a public place however, the
defendant argued that it was not “public” place but rather a “private” place in light of this,
the courts held the Defendant liable by not focusing on “public place” rather “solicitation”
of people who were walking on the street.
The last rule of interpretation was introduced by Lord Denning which is the “Purposive
approach” in which the judiciary tries to find the purpose of the Parliament with the help of
intrinsic means i.e amble, preamble or titles of the statutes as well as the extrinsic means i.e
newspaper of that time, hansards, case laws etc. however, this approach was not given a lot
of hype as it was time consuming hence the judiciary opposed this rule of intervention until
the membership of European Union after which this approach was the most famous one
which will be discussed below. Even though it was not used by judges, there was still a case
in which this approach was used, which is the Case of R (Quintvalle).
Mentioned above, were some of the tools of the judiciary which are used for interpretation
and without a doubt, the literal rule was the most favourite and traditional approach of the
judges as it was easy and very less time consuming however, to further ease the interpretation
of the judiciary, the courts made 2 rules of language as well. The first rule of language was
“Ejusdem Generis” which means that if there is a list of words followed by a general word
then it is limited to the type of word. An example of this was seen in the case of Powell and
in the interpretation of the Sunday Observance Act 1677. The second rule of language was
“Nosscitor a Sociis” which means that a word is recognized by the company it keeps. This
rule was used in the case of Pengelly V Bell Punch as well as in The Factories Act 1989.
The abovementioned rules of interpretation and language not only promoted certainty and
consistency but also helped in understanding the intention of Parliament which a necessity
was to be identified as all the case orders and regulations were based on the statutes and
their meanings. However, as there are different methods of interpretation, as mentioned
above, the most favourite method was the literal rule as the United Kingdom’s Statutes were
drafted precisely and detailed based on the fact that the method of interpretation varies in
different jurisdictions and drafting of statutes. We shall now be discussing the influence of
the membership of the European Union and the Human Rights Act 1998.
The statutes of the European Union (EU) were drafted broadly, and the judges were given
freedom to interpret the statutes as they wished due to the fact that the judges were
considered to be the guardians of the constitution. On the other hand, it was all the opposite
in the United Kingdom’s statutes as there was very little need to completely interpret the
statutes. The United Kingdom signed the European Communities Act (ECA) 1972, and
became part of EU where by the section 2(4) of the ECA 1972, the English courts were
obligated to compile the United Kingdom’s law with the EU law hence, to implement this,
there was a need to use much wider interpretation method due to difference in the drafting
so the English courts shifted to “purposive approach”. This was the time when the purposive
approach was used the most. However, after Brexit there were chances that the courts might
go back to using their traditional approach of literal rule.
the membership of the EU was the first influence on the statutory interpretation whereas the
second Act which influenced the interpretation was the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) and
by the section1 subsection 3 of the HRA, the courts were obligated to compile the laws with
Article 6 of the HRA. Although there were already methods of interpretation available, they
all sometimes failed to make the law compatible with Article 6 hence there were three more
methods introduced by courts which were only used in interpreting the rules according to
the Human Rights Act which were; 1. Reading in, in which the courts included certain words
so that statute becomes compatible, 2. Reading Out, in which the courts excluded certain
words so that statute becomes compatible and 3. Reading Down, in which the courts narrow
down the meaning of some words in order to make the statute compatible. An example of
this was seen in the case of Gaiden V Mendoza where the courts went so far in the
interpretation that they blurred the distinction between making the law and interpreting the
law. Other than these 3 approaches, the courts by Section 4 of HRA were given the right to
give Doctrine of Incompatibility to Parliament where the courts thought that this law cannot
be made compatible by any of the approaches. the Doctrine of Incompatibility was used 36
times altogether and was the last option as it puts political pressure on the Parliament to
revamp the law hence it is used very rarely and was issued first time in the case of R V Mental
Health Tribunal after which the Mental Health Act 1998 was revamped in 2001 to make it
compatible to the human rights. The same Doctrine was also used in the case of Bellinger V
Bellinger and Re Z.
To conclude the above mentioned facts, we can say that the statutory interpretation is the
only way which helps in understanding the law passed by the Parliament however there are
many more reasons such as to promotes certainty in case orders, to find the gaps in the
statute and fill it by interpretation, to make laws compatible with Human Rights as well as
to promote fairness and justice. Statutory interpretation is necessary for the statutes due to
the fact that it gives meaning to the statutes and makes statutes easy to be followed by public
hence, it will not be wrong to say that the judges are skilled in interpreting the statutes and
it is the art of judges to derive the intention of the Parliament.