Introduction

• under separation of powers and Parliamentary supremacy: role of the judges to interpret the law made by executive and legislature

  Duport Steels Ltd v SIRS (1980)

  • Lord Diplock: .. Parliament makes the laws, the judiciary interpret them... it is for Parliament, not for the judiciary, to decide whether any changes should be made to the law as stated in the Act...
  • Lord Scarman: .. If Parliament says one thing but means another, it is not, under the historic principles of the common law, for the courts to correct it... We are to be governed not by Parliament's intentions but by Parliament's enactments..
• under rule of law: legal certainty is required, underpins interpretation and limits judicial creativity

  Spath Holme (2001)

  • Lord Nicholls: .. Citizens, with the assistance of their advisers, are intended to be able to understand parliamentary enactments, so that they can regulate their conduct accordingly. They should be able to rely upon what they read in an Act of Parliament. This gives rise to a tension between the need for legal certainty, which is one of the fundamental elements of the rule of law, and the need to give effect to the intention of Parliament, from whatever source that (objectively assessed) intention can be gleaned...

  Fothergill v Monarch Airlines Ltd [1981]

  • Lord Diplock: .. it would be a confidence trick by Parliament and destructive of all legal certainty if the private citizen could not rely upon that meaning but was required to search through all that had happened before and in the course of the legislative process in order to see whether there was anything to be found from which it could be inferred that Parliament's real intention had not been accurately expressed by the actual words that Parliament had adopted to communicate it to those affected by the legislation...

  Black Clawson Case [1975]

  • Lord Reid: .. We often say that we are looking for the intention of Parliament, but that is not quite accurate. We are seeking the meaning of the words which Parliament used. We are seeking not what Parliament meant but the true meaning of what they said...

Uncertainty

• meaning of statute should be clear a but this is not always achieved
• in many cases there is a dispute over meaning of a word or phrase in a statute
• requires judges to determine exact meaning of particular word or phrase

Role of Interpretation

• potential for uncertainty so inevitable issues must be resolved by judicial interpretation
• techniques and guidelines been developed to assist judges - rules of statutory interpretation
• evolved through common law and are judge made
• Parliamentary Sovereignty maintained because if Parliament does not like the definition produced by a court, it can choose to amend the statute to make meaning explicit or pass new legislation which overturns the court's decision