Statutory interpretation is the process by which courts interpret and apply legislation. Some amount of interpretation is often necessary when a case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and a straightforward meaning, but in many cases, there is some ambiguity in the words of the statute that must be resolved by the judge. To find the meanings of statutes, judges use various tools and methods of statutory interpretation, including traditional canons of statutory interpretation, legislative history, and purpose. In common law jurisdictions, the judiciary may apply rules of statutory interpretation both to legislation enacted by the legislature and to delegated legislation such as administrative agency regulations.
History Statutory interpretation first became significant in common law systems, of which historically England is the exemplar. In Roman and civil law, a statute (or code) guides the magistrate, but there is no judicial precedent. In England, Parliament historically failed to enact a comprehensive code of legislation, which is why it was left to the courts to develop the common law; and having decided a case and given reasons for the decision, the decision would become binding on later courts.
Accordingly, a particular interpretation of a statute would also become binding, and it became necessary to introduce a consistent framework for statutory interpretation. In the construction (interpretation) of statutes, the principal aim of the court must be to carry out the "intention of Parliament", and the English courts developed three main rules (plus some minor ones) to assist them in the task. These were: the mischief rule, the literal rule, and the golden rule.
Statutes may be presumed to incorporate certain components, as Parliament is "presumed" to have intended their inclusion.Trevor Lyons (2016), Notes on the English Legal System, Liverpool John Mores University For example:
Offences defined in criminal statutes are presumed to require mens rea (a guilty intention by the accused): Sweet v Parsley.Sweet v Parsley AC 132, 2 WLR 470, 53 Cr App R 221, 1 All ER 347, HL, reversing 2 QB 418 A statute is presumed to make no changes in the common law. A statute is presumed not to remove an individual's liberty, vested rights, or property.As with EU law, so in the UK an individual who is specifically targeted by a statute will normally have standing to bring a challenge by way of judicial review. A statute is presumed not to apply to the Crown. A statute is presumed not to empower a person to commit a criminal offence. A statute is presumed not to apply retrospectively (whereas the common law is "declaratory": Shaw v DPP).Shaw v DPP AC 220 A statute is to be interpreted so as to uphold international treaties to which the UK is a party. In the case of EU law, any statutory provision which contravenes the principle embodied in the EU treaties that EU law is supreme is effectively void: Factortame.R (Factortame Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport (No 2) 1 AC 603 It is presumed that a statute will be interpreted ejusdem generis ("of the same kind"), so that words are to be construed in sympathy with their immediate context.
Where legislation and case law are in conflict, there is a presumption that legislation takes precedence insofar as there is any inconsistency. In the United Kingdom this principle is known as parliamentary sovereignty; but while Parliament has exclusive competence to legislate, the courts (mindful of their historic role of having developed the entire system of common law) retain sole competence to interpret statutes.
General principles The age old process of application of the enacted law has led to the formulation of certain rules of interpretation. According to Cross, "Interpretation is the process by which the courts determine the meaning of a statutory provision for the purpose of applying it to the situation before them",Rupert Cross, Statutory interpretation, 3rd Edition, p.34 while Salmond calls it "the process by which the courts seek to ascertain the meaning of the legislature through the medium of authoritative forms in which it is expressed".SALMOND: "Jurisprudence"11th Edition, p.152 Interpretation of a particular statute depends upon the degree of creativity applied by the judges or the court in the reading of it, employed to achieve some stated end. It is often mentioned that common law statutes can be interpreted by using the Golden Rule, the Mischief Rule or the Literal Rule. However, according to Francis Bennion, author of texts on statutory interpretation,Stanford Libraries, Bennion on statutory interpretation: a code, accessed 25 November 2022 there are no such simple devices to elucidate complex statutes, "[i]nstead there are a thousand and one interpretative criteria".
Intention of the legislature A statute is an edict of a legislature,Supreme Court of India, Vishnu Pratap Sugar Works (Private) Ltd. v. Chief Inspector of Stamps, U.P., AIR 1968 SC 102, p. 104 and the conventional way of interpreting a statute is to seek the "intention" of its maker of framer. It is the judicature's duty to act upon the true intention of the legislature or the mens or sentential legis. The courts have to objectively determine the interpretation with guidance furnished by the accepted principles.R v. Secretary of State for the Environment expert Spath Holme, (2001) 1 All ER 195, p. 216(HL) If a statutory provision is open to more than one interpretation the court has to choose that interpretation which represents the true intention of the legislature.Venkataswami Naidu v. Narasram Naraindas, AIR 1966 SC 361, p.363 The function of the courts is only to expound and not to legislate.GP Singh, Principles of Statutory Interpretation, 13th Edition, p.4
Conflict of laws within a federation
Federal jurisdictions may presume that either federal or local government authority prevails in the absence of a defined rule. In Canada, there are areas of law where provincial governments and the federal government have concurrent jurisdiction. In these cases the federal law is held to be paramount. However, in areas where the Canadian constitution is silent, the federal government does not necessarily have superior jurisdiction. Rather, an area of law that is not expressly mentioned in Canada's Constitution will have to be interpreted to fall under either the federal residual jurisdiction found in the preamble of s. 91—known as the Peace, Order and Good Government clause—or the provinces residual jurisdiction of "Property and Civil Rights" under s. 92(13A) of the 1867 Constitution Act. This contrasts with other federal jurisdictions, notably the United States and Australia, where it is presumed that if legislation is not enacted pursuant to a specific provision of the federal Constitution, the states will have authority over the relevant matter in their respective jurisdictions, unless the state's definitions of their statutes conflicts with federally established or recognized rights
United States Meaning
The judiciary interprets how legislation should apply in a particular case as no legislation unambiguously and specifically addresses all matters. Legislation may contain uncertainties for a variety of reasons: Words are imperfect symbols to communicate intent. They are ambiguous and change in meaning over time. The word "let" used to mean 'prevent' or 'hinder' and now means 'allow'. The word "peculiar" is used to mean both specific and unusual, e.g. "kangaroos are peculiar to Australia", and "it's very peculiar to see a kangaroo outside Australia". Unforeseen situations are inevitable, and new technologies and cultures make application of existing laws difficult. (e.g. does the use of a new cloning technique create an embryo within the meaning of statute enacted when embryos could only be created by fertilisation?) Uncertainties may be added to the statute in the course of enactment, such as the need for compromise or catering to special interest groups.
Therefore, the court must try to determine how a statute should be enforced. This requires statutory construction. It is a tenet of statutory construction that the legislature is supreme (assuming constitutionality) when creating law and that the court is merely an interpreter of the law. Nevertheless, in practice, by performing the construction the court can make sweeping changes in the operation of the law.
Moreover, courts must also often view a case's statutory context. While cases occasionally focus on a few key words or phrases, judges may occasionally turn to viewing a case in its whole in order to gain deeper understanding. The totality of the language of a particular case allows the Justices presiding to better consider their rulings when it comes to these key words and phrases.
Statutory interpretation is the process by which a court looks at a statute and determines what it means. A statute, which is a bill or law passed by the legislature, imposes obligations and rules on the people. Although legislature makes the Statute, it may be open to interpretation and have ambiguities. Statutory interpretation is the process of resolving those ambiguities and deciding how a particular bill or law will apply in a particular case.
Assume, for example, that a statute mandates that all motor vehicles travelling on a public roadway must be registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). If the statute does not define the term "motor vehicles", then that term will have to be interpreted if questions arise in a court of law. A person driving a motorcycle might be pulled over and the police may try to fine him if his motorcycle is not registered with the DMV. If that individual argued to the court that a motorcycle is not a "motor vehicle", then the court would have to interpret the statute to determine what the legislature meant by "motor vehicle" and whether or not the motorcycle fell within that definition and was covered by the statute.
There are numerous rules of statutory interpretation. The first and most important rule is the rule dealing with the statute's plain language. This rule essentially states that the statute means what it says. If, for example, the statute says "motor vehicles", then the court is most likely to construe that the legislation is referring to the broad range of motorised vehicles normally required to travel along roadways and not "aeroplanes" or "bicycles" even though aeroplanes are vehicles propelled by a motor and bicycles may be used on a roadway.
In Australia and in the United States, the courts have consistently stated that the text of the statute is used first, and it is read as it is written, using the ordinary meaning of the words of the statute.
Below are various quotes on this topic from US courts: U.S. Supreme Court: "We begin with the familiar canon of statutory construction that the starting point for interpreting a statute is the language of the statute itself. Absent a clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive." Consumer Product Safety Commission et al. v. GTE Sylvania, Inc. et al., 447 U.S. 102 (1980). "[I]n interpreting a statute a court should always turn to one cardinal canon before all others. ... [C]ourts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there." Connecticut National Bank v. Germain, 112 S. Ct. 1146, 1149 (1992). Indeed, "when the words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is also the last: 'judicial inquiry is complete. 503 U.S. 249, 254.