ACCA F4 - Corp and Business Law (ENG)

Part A Essential elements of the legal system  2: Sources of law 27

3.1.2 The mischief rule

Under the mischief rule a judge considers what mischief the Act was intended to prevent. Where a statute

is designed to remedy a weakness in the law, the correct interpretation is the one which achieves it.

In Corkery v Carpenter 1950 the court held that a bicycle was a 'carriage' for the purpose of the Licensing

Act 1872 where a defendant was charged with cycling whilst intoxicated. The purpose of the Act was to

prevent people who are in a state of intoxication from operating any form of transport on public roads.

The case of DPP v Bull saw the defendant (a man) charged with prostitution under the Street Offences Act

1959. However, the Magistrate upheld his defence that the Act in question applied only to females and
      therefore the mischief could not be committed by a male. Thankfully, this offensive interpretation has
      since been consigned to history when new laws replaced the Street Offences Act.
      The 'golden' and 'mischief' rules were used until relatively recently. The Law Commissioners
      recommended that judges interpret statute using the general purposes behind it and the intentions of
      Parliament. This is known as purposive interpretation.

3.1.3 The purposive approach

Under the purposive approach to statutory interpretation, the words of a statute are interpreted not only in

their ordinary, literal and grammatical sense, but also with reference to the context and purpose of the

legislation, ie what is the legislation trying to achieve?

Gardiner v Sevenoaks RDC 1950

The facts: The purpose of an Act was to provide for the safe storage of film wherever it might be stored on

'premises'. The claimant argued that 'premises' did not include a cave and so the Act had no application to

his case.

Decision: The purpose of the Act was to protect the safety of persons working in all places where film was

stored. If film was stored in a cave, the word 'premises' included the cave.

The key to the purposive approach is that the judge construes the statute in such a way as to be

consistent with the purpose of the statute as they understand it, even if the wording of the statute could

be applied literally without leading to manifest absurdity.

3.1.4 The contextual rule

The contextual rule means that a word should be construed in its context: it is permissible to look at the

statute as a whole to discover the meaning of a word in it.

A more purposive approach is also being taken because so many international and EU regulations come

to be interpreted by the courts.

3.2 General rules of interpretation

The following general rules of interpretation have also been developed by the courts.

3.2.1 The eiusdem generis rule

Statutes often list a number of specific things and end the list with more general words. In that case the

general words are to be limited in their meaning to other things of the same kind as the specific items

which precede them. In Powell v Kempton Park Racecourse 1899 it was held that a clause referring to a

'house, office, room or other place' excluded a ring at a racecourse.

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