The Rules of Statutory Interpretation Allow Judges to Decide the Case as They Wish. Discuss (25 Marks)

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The rules of statutory interpretation allows judges to decide the case as they wish because there are different outcomes depending on the rule applied, therefore the judge can apply the different rules to see which one doesn’t give an absurd outcome. One example of this is the literal rule, the literal rule means the interpretation of Acts purely according to their literal meaning; it has fallen out of favour since the 19th Century. It is, unsurprisingly, the first approach that will be taken. It means following the literal, ordinary or natural meaning of words, even if the outcome is absurd. Some argue that this rule encourages precision of drafting, however a counter argument is why would anyone be deliberately careless? Statutory interpretation also grants law making powers to judges, which defeats the point of parliamentary supremacy. In addition, the question of what is absurd or immoral and therefore allowing the plain words of a statute to be ignored is by necessity a subjective one, and so the interpretation will vary with the judge's background, upbringing, education, and beliefs; which will inevitably differ greatly from the mean at least some of the time. In Whitley v. Chappell (1868), it was illegal to impersonate any person entitled to vote. A dead person who was not entitled to vote, so therefore was acquitted. However if it does give an absurd outcome, the judges apply the golden rule. The golden rule allows a judge to depart from a word's normal meaning in order to avoid an absurd result. Although it points to a kind of middle ground between the literal rule and the mischief rule, the golden rule is not actually a compromise between them. Like the literal rule, the golden rule gives the words of a statute their plain, ordinary meaning. However, when this may lead to an irrational result that is unlikely to be the legislature's intention, the golden
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