Law Key Words ELS🖋️(Statutory Interpretation)

Question 1

Precedent

Answer 1

A precedent is something that precedes, or comes before. The Supreme Court relies on precedents—that is, earlier laws or decisions that provide some example or rule to guide them in the case they’re actually deciding

Question 2

Literal rule

Answer 2

The literal rule of statutory interpretation should be the first rule applied by judges. Under the literal rule, the words of the statute are given their natural or ordinary meaning and applied without the judge seeking to put a gloss on
the words or seek to make sense of the statute.

Question 3

Golden Rule

Answer 3

The golden rule is a rule of statutory interpretation and allows the courts to assume that Parliament intended that its legislative provision have a wider definition than its literal meaning, and so the grammatical and ordinary sense of a word can be modified to avoid the inconsistency or absurdity created by an application of the literal rule, but no farther

Question 4

Mischief Rule

Answer 4

This rule requires the court to look to what the law was before the legislation was passed in order to discover what gap or mischief the legislation was intended to cover.

Question 5

Purposive approach

Answer 5

The Purposive Approach is a principle of statutory interpretation that requires judges to interpret a statute in a way that gives effect to the legislature’s intended purpose or objective. Mainly used in EU Law

Question 6

Internal aid

Answer 6

Internal aids are those contained in the statute itself and consist of

Question 7

External aids

Answer 7

Things which were not in the source