I.

Introduction to Statutory Interpretation

 Sometimes legislation can have different interpretations because law is linguistic in nature, and words are subjective in regards to interpretation
 Statutory interpretation involves 2 processes:
1- Construction: text must be scrutinised to establish what the rule actually is/ extracting the rule 2- Interpretation: to establish what the rule actually means in the context of a case
Construing
 Legislation can be analysed into 5 aspects:
1- Case 2- Condition 3- Subject 4- Declaration 5- Exception
 Semantic ambiguity: when one word means more than one thing
Example: fair- appropriate, just, fun fair entertainment, light hair colour,
weather
The meaning of a word would often be given within its context, but that context itself can create its own ambiguities under uncertainty
 Syntactic ambiguity: when the context/ message of a sentence is ambiguous
Example: "no eggs of hens or ducks can be eaten…"- does this refer to eggs of hens and eggs of ducks, or eggs of hens and whole ducks?
Interpretation
 Interpretation problems:
1- Words change over time (family)
2- Difficulties with drafting because complex ideas are put into simple form and time pressure
 There are different perspectives in statutory interpretation, so there is no absolute certainty
- Intention of parliament:
To interpret legislation, the intention of parliament in creating that legislation is determined

Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Scottish Legal System Notes.