Episode 64

Gordon Brysland

It’s not only the High Court which provides key guidance on interpretation principles.  All courts high and low make their contribution, but the NSW Court of Appeal stands out as an engine of scholarship.  From the time of Project Blue Sky until retirement in 2011, Spigelman CJ progressed evolution and explanation of the ‘modern approach’.  In the first Spigelman Public Law Oration, Gageler J said it was Spigelman CJ ‘who first clearly articulated the now dominant text-in-context approach to statutory interpretation’1.  Current powerlifters, among them John Basten and Mark Leeming, bring a principled and technocratic approach to diverse zones of difficulty, including legislative intention2 and interactions between statutes and the common law3.  Much of the work done by this court will inform and guide future developments.  This episode looks at 4 of its recent cases.

Gordon Brysland – Tax Counsel Network

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In this episode:

Credits – Gordon Brysland, Oliver Hood, Claudia Hodge, Philip Borrell.

Footnotes:

1 Gageler Deference in Williams (ed) Key Issues in Public Law 1 (at 1).

2 eg Basten Legislative Intention (2019) 93 ALJ 367.

3 eg Leeming The Statutory Elephant in the Room (2013) 36 UNSWLJ 1002.