This week we have looked primarily at some standard rules which are published in Acts like the Acts Interpretation Act so that other Acts can be shorter and less ‘wordy’.
It is important to remember which jurisdiction the statute relates to because the rules surrounding its interpretation will be contained in the Act which also covers that jurisdiction.
Commonwealth Legislation: Acts Interpretation Act (1901) (Cth)
Queensland: Acts Interpretation Act (1954) (Qld)
We have then looked at some specific rules which will apply unless the Act being interpreted specifically says to the contrary.
Gender: All legislation is non-gender specific. So if is says “he” it means “he or she”
Age; you become a certain age at 1 second past midnight on that anniversary of your birthday.
Number; Where a statute refers to the singular it also includes the plural. e.g it is illegal to carry a gun also means that it is illegal to carry two or more guns.
Distance: measured in a straight line (as the crow flies) and in a horizontal plane.
Time: it is expected that the time referred to is the local time.A day is a 24 hour period commencing at midnight and a month is a calendar month. If the statute says that something starts ‘at’ or ‘on’ a date it includes that day. if it says ‘from’ or after’ that date it excludes that day.
if legislation begins at the time of assent it is taken to have begun from the beginning of the day when assent occurred – even if assent occurred late in that day.
If something must be done or end ‘before’ a certain day it doesn’t include that day.
If something must be done by a day that is a weekend or public holiday then that thing can be done on the next day which is not a weekend or public holiday (usually the next Monday).
if there is no time period then things must be done within a ‘reasonable’ time period.
May and shall. If it says you may do something then that is discretionary. If you ‘shall’ do something then you must do it – it is mandatory.
May can also be ready as ‘must’ if the purpose of the legislation is such that that is the meaning that was intended. Case; Project Blue Sky
Unless an act says otherwise Commonwealth Acts begin 28 days from assent. in Queensland it is the day of assent.
Where things are included then things not mentioned are excluded.
So I think we have a lit of rules which will be important when it comes to answering the 2nd question for the first assignment in which we have been given a hypothetical piece of legislation and we are to use it to give our client advice.
The rest of the chapter involved repealed and amended legislation. I wont write out all of the rules here except to say that you need to make sure that the statute you are looking at was in force at the time of the act in question. most of the other rules around amended legislation are quite common sense.
If a part of an Act is declared to be invalid then if it can be severed from the Act without affecting the operation of the rest of the Act then the rest of the Act still applies.
If words are merely added then that is an amendment, not a repeal. Subsequent laws repeal those that came before, AND enacted to the contrary.
Rhys's Statutory Interpretation Site 