Full Record

The interpreter - types; subject as; enforcement agencies The instrument to be interpreted - Acts of Parliament The instrument to be interpreted - subordinate legislation - prerogative instruments; delegated legislation Commencement, amendment and repeal of Acts - commencement; ammendment; repeal or expiry; transitional provisions; retrospective operation Extent and application of Acts - territorial extent; application of an Act to persons and matters The enactment and the facts - what an enactment is; the facts of the instant case Grammatical and strained constructions - legal meaning; grammatical meaning, strained construction Legislative intention Filling in the textual detail Interpretative criteria and factors Rules of construction Informed interpretation rule Pre-enacting history; enacting history; post-enacting history The functional construction rule - operative components of Act; unamendable components of Act; incorporation of provisions by reference Interpretative principles Principle against doubtful penalisation Interpretative presumptions The mischief and its remedy Purposive construction Construction against absurdity Construction against evasion Presumed application of ancillary rules of law Presumed application of ancillary legal maxims Linguistic canons of construction - general; use of deductive reasoning; interpretation of individual words and phrases; elaboration of meaning of words and phrases