University: Banja Luka
Faculty: Law
Academic year: 2015/2016
Term: Summer/II
Course: Legal English
Type of class: Lectures
Date and time: 09.03.2017, 09.00 – 13.00
3rd week of lectures/15 weeks
09.00 – 10.00
Statutory interpretation
Once Parliament has passed an Act, it then falls to the courts to apply the statute in a
particular case. This can lead to difficulties where the facts of the case may not have been
envisaged by Parliament or where there exist drafting errors or ambiguity in the statute. The
Interpretation Act 1978 provides certain basic definitions such as: “singular” includes “plural”
and “he” includes “she”. In addition, the courts have developed rules to assist judges in
interpreting statutes.
The rules of statutory interpretation (cannons of construction)
The literal rule
The literal rule of statutory interpretation should be the first rule applied by judges. Under the
literal rule, the words of a statute are interpreted in their ordinary, literal or grammatical sense
and applied without the judge seeking to put a gloss on the words or seek to make sense of the
statute.
The golden rule
The golden rule of statutory interpretation may be applied where an application of the literal rule
would lead to an absurdity. The courts may then apply a secondary meaning.
The mischief rule
The mischief rule is more flexible than the Golden or Literal rule. It requires judges to look over
four tasks to ensure that gaps within the law are covered.
The mischief rule of statutory interpretation is the oldest of the rules. It was established in
Heydon’s case [1584] EWHC Exch J36.
Under the mischief rule the court’s role is to suppress the mischief the Act is aimed at and
advance the remedy.
To charge with - to place criminal charges against someone, to accuse sb. of sth.
Conviction - a judgment that the defendant is guilty of the crime charged
Defendant – the party sued in a civil lawsuit or the party charged with a crime in a criminal
prosecution
Hold – to decide (court), to pass judgment, to rule
Insure – to acquire/have insurance for; to provide / issue an insurance policy, to guarantee
persons or property against risk
Mischief – harm/injury caused by a person or a thing, an offence against property
Offence – a violation of the law; a criminal act
Quash - to annul, make void (a law, decision, etc.), to reject as invalid
Suppress – to stop something; to prevent or prohibit; restrain
Victim – a person harmed/injured as a result of an offence
1. Read te following examples of cases and say which rule of statutory interpretation was applied in
each of them:
 R v Allen (1872) LR 1 CCR 367
The defendant was charged with the offence of bigamy under s. 57 of the Offences Against
the Person Act 1861. The statute states ’whosoever being married shall marry any other
person during the lifetime of the former husband or wife is guilty of an offence’. Under a
literal interpretation of this section the offence would be impossible to commit since civil law
will not recognize a second marriage: any attempt to marry in such circumstances would not
be recognized as a valid marriage.
The court held that the word ‘marry’ should be interpreted as ‘to go through a marriage
ceremony’. The defendant’s conviction was upheld.
 Elliot v Grey [1960] 1 QB 367
The defendant’s car was parked on the road. It was jacked up and had its battery removed. He
was charged with an offence under the Road Traffic Act 1930 of using an uninsured vehicle
on the road. The defendant argued he was not ‘using’ the car on the road as clearly it was not
driveable.
The court held that the car was being used on the road as it represented a hazard and therefore
insurance would be required in the event of an incident. The statute was aimed at ensuring
people were compensated when injured due to the hazards created by others.
 R v Harris (1836) 7 C&P 446
The defendant bit off his victim’s nose. The statute made it an offence ‘to stab, cut or
wound’.
The court held that the act of biting did not come within the meaning of ‘stab, cut or wound’
as these words implied an instrument had to be used. Therefore the defendant’s conviction
was quashed.
Linda Evans et al, Law, Chapter 1, Units 4, 9, 10 and 11
10.00:11.00
Case study - synopsis
Judge John Deed (British legal drama television series),
Series 1/Episode 3: Duty of Care (1h:28 min)
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Tony Cootes, a 19-year-old boy, who lives in a single-parent family, gets a job, as casual
labour, at Mandle PLC, a local building company, owned by Mike Briggs. While on the
building site, the wall falls and crushes him to death.
Joe Mills is to prosecute a case against a foreman and site manager, running
manslaughter. Mills is not sure whether the right people are being prosecuted.
Accordingly, CPS came close to running corporate manslaughter with Mike Briggs in the
frame. However, days before committal the charges were withdrawn and Briggs
squirmed away leaving the two employees in the frame.
CPS: There is no line of culpability to Briggs.
Judge John Deed, a man of principles, decides to hear the case, with the ultimate
intention to have the prosecution reinstate the corporate manslaughter charge against
Mike Briggs and his company, and thus bring some satisfaction to the dead boy’s mother.
In her opening speech, Joe Mills highlights that according to the Health and Safety
inspectors’ report everything that could possibly be wrong on the site was wrong:
absence of adequate training, lack of safety overrides on machinery, some of the plant on
site was found to have 17 potentially lethal defects, wrong equipment used for lifting,
inexperienced personnel were allowed to drive machinery, lack of supervision…
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The reasons for such negligence was to cut costs, to achieve maximum profit regardless
of safety, showing little value of young lives
In determining the line of responsibility, one of the defendants stated that the building
company was owned by Briggs, but was run by a contractor, and the site was mostly run
by the site manager and the clerk of the works
Mr. Briggs was a hands-on managing director who frequently visited the site to hurry
things up.
The prosecution intended to call Mr. Briggs as a witness and had served him with papers,
but he had not responded
The Health and Safety inspector, acting as a witness, proved that the Company was
warned several times about wrong practices to the point of having the site closed down
but it had never happened due to the pressure of work. The contractors did not respond
because they were behind schedule, and were receiving a lot of pressure from Mr. Briggs.
Mrs. Cootes, second witness, was made redundant in the same building company. Her
husband left the family and never paid any maintenance so Tony felt the man of the
house. The job centre called him to report to the building site where no experience was
required as long as the person was fit. There was not training, which was considered a
waste of time for casual labour. Many accidents happened to general labour on the site,
they had no insurance and H and S inspectors could find no breach.
There was a mutual relationship between an inspector and those he inspected. The system
did not work.
Charlie, judge Deed’s daughter, has a dog that was rescued from a research lab and needs
to be re-homed. Judge Deed objects at first to keeping the dog, but yields eventually.
In judge Deed’s chambers the counsel discusses the possibility of changing the charges
and the plea for the two defendants in the dock extending them to involve Mike Briggs,
whose involvement is not more than obvious.
Mike Briggs does not like the idea of being prosecuted and insists that his legal advisor,
George, judge Deed’s ex-wife, represents him in court. She is not a specialist for
common law criminal charges but she is energetic enough to represent Briggs’ interests.
Mr. Briggs has a great political influence and is well-connected, sufficient reason for the
Executive, Sir Ian Rochester to start molesting judge Deed to drop the case.
Judge Deed believes that only strong evidence can persuade CPS to stay in the game. He
advised Mills to ask the boy’s mother to leak to the press something about Briggs’
political connections. In addition, Mrs. Cootes shows the judge a memo signed by Briggs
whereby he orders the company managers to disregard H and S policy. This is sufficient
for judge Deed to issue a bench order for Briggs’ arrest.
George is representing Briggs in court, but is not very familiar with the procedural
matters, holds the court in contempt and is being sent to a cell by judge Deed.
Precedents: Lord Denning v. Neways Mining Accident (In the case of H.L. Bolton
(Engineering) Co Ltd v T.J.Graham & Sons Ltd, Lord Denning attempted to entrench directing
mind theory at the heart of the law for the imposition of civil or criminal liability on companies.
Lord Denning stated that companies: “may in many ways be likened to a human body. They
have a brain and a nerve centre which controls what they do. They also have hands which hold
the tools and act in accordance with directions from the centre.” Therefore Lord Denning
advocated that the means of determining the mind of the company was to identify its actual
human controllers. He argued that a company's directors and managers represent the directing
mind and will of the company, and that they control what the company does. He concluded that
the state of mind of senior corporate officers is the state of mind of the company and that it
should be treated by the law as such. Unfortunately, Denning's policy rendered it virtually
impossible for corporations of anything other than a very small size to be successfully prosecuted
because in most corporations of a significant size the personal responsibility for corporate affairs
is divided between a number of directors and senior managers and as a consequence, no single
human component of the company is responsible for sufficient of the mens rea and actus reus in
order to found a criminal prosecution.)
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Judge Deed’s policeman, Steven, realizes that the rescued dog is a stolen property and
wants to discredit the judge, so he takes the dog to Charlie to allegedly put the dog in a
safe place. However, it was a set-up and Charlie and the dog were arrested. Judge Deed
goes to the Police station and claims the dog.
Based on presented evidence, the jury found Mike Briggs guilty of corporate
manslaughter.
11.00 – 13.00 Video presentation of corporate manslaughter case.
Questions:
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12.
What are the three main rules of statutory interpretation?
What is statutory interpretation?
Who are main interpreters of the law?
What is arraignment?
What is discovery process?
What is perjury?
Name some court rules the party should abide by when facing a trial.
What is the purpose of Criminal law?
What is capital punishment?
Who are recidivists?
Name main types of punishment.
Custody/remand/detention v. jail/prison.
13. Manslaughter v. corporate manslaughter.
14. What is directing mind principle?
15. What is the counsel submission usually based on?
16. Explain contempt of court offence. (Legal Ethics)
17. What does it mean to purge one’s contempt? (Legal Ethics)
18. Arrest warrant v. summons (subpoena). (Criminal Law)
19. Direct examination v. cross-examination.