Applied Law - QCF (Edexcel)

Statutory Interpretation

Judges may want to change a statute law, also known as statute interpretation, this may be a cause of concern for the judge, they have to apply for this and in order to do these rules, the literal, golden, mischief and purposive.

Literal Rule - The literal rule can be followed by applying to the court for a literal reason - in the case of R v Harris (1836) the defendant bit off the victims nose but the offence was 'to stab, wound or cut', because a weapon was not used the defendant did not get charged under the literal rule, this rule is good as it can highlight any absurdity in the law but it can also lead to unfair results.

Golden Rule - The golden rule gives the judge another chance to change their literal rule, the golden rule was used on the case R v Allen (1872) in which the defendant was charged with bigamy because of the fact that they married twice in their lifetime, the literal rule determined a second marriage to be impossible because civil courts do not recognise second marriages but this was then changed by the golden rule as the defendant used the word marry and went through a ceremonial event, the golden rule is good as it allows the court to alter the words of a statute but it only allows judges to change the wording and not change the statute and can be quite inconsistant.

Mischief Rule - The mischief rule gives judges flexibility in deciding what mischief parliament intends to stop - in the case of Cockery v Carpenter (1951) the defendant was charged with being drunk in charge of a bicycle in public, he was charged under section 12 of the Licencing Act (1972) but after using the mischief rule it was found under the act that bicycles were not mentioned so the defendant cannot be convicted but it was found that because the defendant used a form of transport when intoxicated under this act, they are guilty; the mischief rule is good as looks at the intentions and common sense of the statute but sometimes it's hard to know what the intention of the statute is if the person who made it is not around anymore.

Purposive approach - The purposive approach looks for the purpose of legislation as a whole, they decide what they think parliament was meant to achieve, this makes it more flexible - In the case of Jones v Tower Boot Company (1977), in this case some employees were being violent to another employee because of their race under the same employer and the purposive approach was used to question whether or not the employer is guilty for the acts of the employees - it was found that the Tower Boot Company were liable for this as they are responsible for their employees behavior - this is a good approach as it is very flexible but if the wording of a statute is changed it might make future cases more difficult.

Intrinsic aids help determine the judge to use books of the law to help choose their approach and extrinsic aids allows judges to use books outside of the law such as the dictionary to help choose their approach.We need statutory interpretation because it allows the law to change and become more flexible and fit to certain situations that is why it is free to judicial interpretation as future events can be unexpected, such as future technologies, human error and changes to the english language.