The Golden Rule; Purposive or Teleological Interpretation When an inter-
preter looks at the purpose of a rule, he may revert to the intention of the legislator
who formulated the rule. That is the application of the Mischief Rule. However, he
may also try to determine the purpose of the rule himself. When we speak of
purposive or teleological interpretation, the decision maker applies the so-called
Golden Rule.
Assume again that the legislator created the prohibition of dogs in butcheries in order to
prevent unhygienic situations in food stores. If a legal decision maker recognizes this
interest, but finds the interest of visually handicapped persons more important, she might
interpret the rule to make guide dogs fall outside the rule’s scope.The Lawyer’s Toolbox We have seen that a legal decision maker who must
justify his choice for a particular rule formulation has the choice from different
techniques. Some of these techniques are relatively formalist: the decision maker
refers to the decision of someone else, a legislator, or a court, and avoids to give a
value judgment himself. Other techniques are more substantive: the decision maker
engages into reasoning about what would be a good rule. He makes his own value
judgment and bases his interpretation of the rule on this value judgment. In both
cases, however, the decision maker has to choose a technique.
The different legal sources, the reasoning techniques, and the canons of inter-
pretation can be compared to a set of decision-making tools in a lawyer’s toolbox.
Depending on the needs of the case, a legal decision maker picks a tool that helps
him to reach a desirable result. In this connection, he has a certain leeway.
1.6 Legal Families
Common Law Family The developments in the law in Europe during the second
millennium divided the national legal systems in Europe, by and large, into two
“legal families.” On one hand, there is the common law family, which includes
England, Wales, and Ireland.
Scottish law was influenced by both the common law and the civil law tradition. It is a
“mixed legal system”.These systems were not so influenced by the reception of Roman law. Moreover,
the development of common law is driven by the judiciary because the judges make
new law through their decisions.
It must be said, though, that recently legislation has become a more important source of the
law in the common law countries too.Civil Law Family The great counterpart of the common law family in Europe is
the civil law family. The law of most countries in the European continent has been
greatly influenced by the combination of Roman and Canon laws.
It is possible to detect a further subdivision within this civil law tradition. On one
hand, there are countries that have been strongly influenced by the French codifica-
tion movement. This movement emphasized the role of parliament and democratic
18 J. Hage