ACCA F4 - Corp and Business Law (ENG)

26 2: Sources of law  Part A Essential elements of the legal system

The disadvantages of the system are as follows.

 There are concerns over the accountability of Parliament. Individual MPs and their civil service

staff effectively become the source of law rather than Parliament whose actions are open to

questioning and public scrutiny.

 The system is unrepresentative in that some power is given to civil servants who are not

democratically elected.

 Because delegated legislation can be produced in large volumes, ordinary MPs and the public find

it difficult to keep up to date with developments.

 The different sorts of delegated legislation which may be produced by virtue of one statute can

greatly confuse users.

Saving Parliamentary time and the use of experts are key benefits of delegated legislation.

3 Statutory interpretation

Legislation must be interpreted correctly before judges can apply it fairly. The literal, golden and

mischief rules of interpretation developed over time. Nowadays a purposive approach is taken.

Judges are faced with task of applying legislation to the particular case heard before them. To apply the

legislation they must first interpret and understand it. Problems occur when the judge has difficulty

interpreting the statute. There are a number of situations which might lead to a need for interpretation.

(a) Ambiguity might be caused by an error in drafting or words may have a dual meaning.

(b) Uncertainty may arise where the words of a statute are intended to apply to a range of factual

situations and the courts must decide whether the case before them falls into any of these situations.

(c) There may be unforeseeable developments.

(d) The draft may use a broad term. Thus, the word 'vehicle' may need to be considered in relation to

the use of skateboards or bicycles.

There are a number of different sources of assistance for a judge in their task of statutory interpretation.

 Rules

 Presumptions

 Other aids (intrinsic or extrinsic)

3.1 Rules of statutory interpretation

In interpreting the words of a statute, courts have developed a number of well-established general rules.

3.1.1 The literal rule and golden rule

The literal rule means that words in the Act should be given their literal and grammatical meaning rather

than what the judge thinks they mean. It is extended by the golden rule which states that words should be

given their plain, ordinary or literal meaning unless this would give rise to manifest absurdity or

inconsistency with the rest of the statute.

Normally a word should be construed in the same literal sense wherever it appears in the statute. In

Whitely v Chapell 1868 a statute aimed at preventing electoral malpractice made it an offence to

impersonate 'any person entitled to vote' at an election. The accused was acquitted because he

impersonated a dead person, who was clearly not entitled to vote. The case of Re Sigsworth 1935 saw a

son murder his mother. Applying the literal rule to the Administration of Justice Act 1925 would mean that

the son would inherit his murdered mother's estate. The court applied the golden rule, stating that a

murderer should not benefit from their crime and therefore the law would not be interpreted literally in this

case.

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