Interpreting Statutes

Interpreting Statutes has been written for lawyers and judges who must interpret statutes on a daily basis, as well as for students and scholars who have their own responsibility for the future. This book takes a new approach to statutory interpretation. The authors consider the fundamental importance of context in statutory interpretation across various fields of regulation and explore the problems, which arise from the frequent disjunction between regulatory design and subsequent statutory interpretation. As a result, they bring to the fore fundamental theoretical questions underlying interpretive choice and expand our appreciation of how critical interpretive issues are to the proper functioning of our legal system. The book is divided into two parts. The first covers several areas dealing with fundamental theoretical issues. The second deals with particular areas of the law, such as criminal law or corporate law, addressing the utility and functionality of the general theories from different legal perspectives and illustrating the fact that different interpretive principles may take precedence in different areas of the law. It reveals the complexity of statutory interpretation when applied to actual practice in a particular area of law. Despite this complexity and the unique problems of statutory interpretation within each area of law, some major themes emerge including: the strong influence of constitutional interpretation; tension between common law rights and statutory innovation; questions about the interaction of domestic law with international law; tension between settled judicial principles of interpretation and principles embedded in legislation; issues concerning the interpretation of delegated legislation; and questions about gap filling and discretion in the interpretation of statutes and codes.