iNOW! turned 60 back in May. What started as a little in-house ATO experiment to boost awareness of basic interpretation principle now has its own website, 400–odd subscribers and a fat kudos file. It was expected that, after a few years, there would be little new to write about and we could go home. Precisely the opposite turned out to …
Context is always important and often decisive, as the case on access to correspondence between Sir John Kerr and the Queen shows1. Marked ‘personal and confidential’, these papers have been the subject of intense speculation ever since the dismissal. Public access could be had if each was a ‘Commonwealth record’, defined as ‘a record that is the property …
Statutory interpretation rarely makes the front page. But news outlets everywhere1 have reported the US Supreme Court decision making it illegal to sack people simply for being gay or transgender2 – Bostock v Clayton County3. Much of the ruckus was over the fact that it was a Trump appointee, Neil Gorsuch, who held that the Civil …
In R v A21, the High Court articulated an overall method of statutory interpretation. Although judges and academics have approached this topic before2, A2 is notable for its extended discussion by the majority. Under the heading, ‘Construction – method’, the court outlines a method to be followed. First, the judges reaffirm that the task is ‘to …
Are interpretation principles to be thrown out as we grapple with COVID-19? Some thoughts … The legal system must be functional just as much in a pandemic or war as at other times – ‘amid the clash of arms, the laws are not silent’1. Neither the statute book nor the principles for reading it are suspended by emergencies …
Is big data coming to statutory interpretation? In a recent US case, judges considered corpus linguistics as an aid to determining the ordinary meaning of statutory words1. Corpus linguistics involves analysis of vast databases of language to identify common usage. One judge argued it ‘will yield a broader and more empirically-based understanding of the ordinary meaning of a …
Episode 55 observes a ‘certain stability of the law’ on interpretation. But, given that stability, why is the task so hard, and why do so many cases still turn on a complicated application of the rules? A few points can be made. The first is that interpretation is first and always an objective exercise. Absent objectivity, it becomes too easy …
As noted in Episode 55, the High Court in The Queen v A2 states that no recent cases ‘suggest a return to a literal approach to construction’1. That approach ‘has long been eschewed by this Court’, it was said. Judges and tribunals around the land rushed to quote these words2. What is interesting is why the …
What interpretational themes attracted the attention of the High Court in 2019? The first one is that nothing in the last decade or so suggests any ‘return to a literal approach to construction’1. The central importance of the ‘twin pillars’ – Project Blue Sky and CIC Insurance – continued to be stressed2, along with the instruction …
Judicial decisions on the meaning of a statutory word can sometimes be useful when looking at the same word in another Act. The degree of usefulness varies, however, depending on factors like context and purpose. More weight might be given where the so-called ‘re-enactment presumption’1, recently considered by the High Court, can be engaged2. Where a …
