We are looking at context, this is what we do when we are trying to determine the purpose and the intention of the parliament.
From last week – remember be on the look out for a definitions section and also look at the objects clause – if there is one.
This week we follow on and look at the text itself. Every word is meant to have a meaning. Why? Separation of powers, the courts are duty bound to say the parliament intended meaning to be given to every word. Ordinarily the ordinary meaning is the meaning but remember to give consideration to the sense in which it is used.
The Hummer case is a great example of how the ordinary meaning of the word limousine was adopted. There was not a technical meaning. They just used the ordinary meaning.
Some words do have a technical or legal meaning. An example of this is the flick knife case, an offer has a more technical meaning and putting something in the shop window is actually an invitation to treat.
Pawn shop has a legal or technical meaning. Somewhere you bail property as security for a debt. Clearly the lender was trying to establish a chattel mortgage and hold onto the mortgage.The technical meaning of pawn shop was applied.
Statutes are always speaking – 1991, internet was not huge then but an act that talked about say communication technology. connotation – using technology to commit a crime, denotation:
Where the judge can stretch out the meaning, although there was no internet in 1991 the connotation that any means of communication can be comfortably used.
Always use an objective test to think about the parliament’s intent.
Dictionaries are allowed to be used. There is no rule as to what dictionary to use, sometimes multiple dictionaries are used and specialist dictionaries can be used too – especially when the word is a specialist word.
A word once it is designated it is generic throughout the Act. If a different word was used it was probably done for a purpose.
Variants of words – go back to AIA parts of speech etc.
Limiting words, solely, primarily, exclusively etc…..do not take it for granted that it is limiting. Case example of the University subletting shops. ‘solely for the purpose of the university. That is fine but you will always be able to slip something through but the law does not concern itself with trifles.
Hendiadys – putting two words into a phrase to come up with a new meaning. Do you need both things? Too much of a stretch to pull out the and replace it with an ‘or’.
Temporal expressions give you a good starting point but don’t take that for granted: case example Jemmena Gas – the court came to a sensible result. Moved away from a literal interpretation to avoid a silly outcome.
here some of the cases seem to me to point to the court avoiding silly outcomes, even though these rules of Statutory Interpretation exist, it is up to the court which ones to use and how to apply them. Avoiding a silly outcome seems to be going against the idea that Wayne highlighted in week 1 that it is not up to the court to try to come to a fair decision.
‘Deemed’ means something is easily shown. Deemed to mean – it does mean.
Even a word that seems clear is capable of a number of different meanings.
Rhys's Statutory Interpretation Site 