How Judges Interpret Statutes (Research Paper Sample)

HOW JUDGES INTERPRET THE STATUTES
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How Judges Interpret the Statutes
The common perception is that the legislature’s role is to make laws, while the judiciary is only meant to apply them. Such a thought is often misguided since it does not take into account the judiciary’s creativity and discretion in the way it interprets the statutes. It is important to note that though the legislature may strive to produce specific statutes that address some intended issues, with all the efforts focused on precision, the interpretation of the laws still faces some challenges that are majorly related to communication. When the judiciary is left with the task of interpreting what the parliament has passed, it is faced with so much ambiguity that it has to decide on the meanings they have to place on some of the words based on how they are used. As such, the Judiciary assumes the role of determining the meanings of the statutes, and mostly their personal prejudices may lead them to subverting the aim of the parliament.
Judges have two approaches that they can use to interpret the statutes, i.e. the purposive and the literal approachesCITATION Dav141 \p 40 \l 1033 (David, Ruby & John 2014, p. 40). The literal approach is quite restrictive and requires the Judge to focus primarily on the words of the statute in order to come up with its meaning, and should avoid focusing anywhere else. The purposive approach is less restrictive and gives the judge freedom to focus beyond the words of the statute as they try to find the purpose for the enactment of the statute, and use that purpose to construe its meaning. It therefore gives the judges freedom to deviate from the literal meanings of the statutes. Meanwhile, the literal approach has received a lot of criticism and today judges mostly use the purposive approach. This kind of shift resulted from the need to consider the issues that were not in the minds of the legislators at the time the statute was passed, but arose later maybe due to advances in technologyCITATION Gar14 \p 91-92 \l 1033 (Gary & David 2014, pp. 91-92).
In cases where the judges have used the literal rule to interpret the statutes, the meanings have often turned out to be harsh or limited in prosecuting the law offenders. If we consider the case of Diane Blood who was denied the chance to conceive using her late husband’s sperms, which had been harvested when he was in a comma; the court applied the literal meaning in interpreting the statute, which stated that no such artificial insemination would take place without the consent of the donor. Of course such restrictions were not applicable in this particular situation, but the court went ahead to use the literal meaning of the actCITATION Ali13 \p 38 \l 1033 (Alisdair 2013, p. 38). Moreover, the Fisher vs. Bell (1961) case portrays the same challenge. The statute prohibited the offer of offensive weapons for sale. A shop put on display flick knives on its window with an aim of selling them. Although the knives are considered offensive weapons, the contract law has it that displaying an item on the window does not mean they are displayed for sale, but is simply a pre-offer, or an invitation. The court used the literal meaning of the statute and acquitted the defendant on grounds that the act did not result to a legal offer. However, the parliament had to change the law so that such acts could be chargedCITATION Luc15 \p 54 \l 1033 (Jones 2015, p. 54).
The cases above show the absurdity that arises when judges use the literal rule. To avoid all these absurdity or inconsistency, there is another approach called the golden rule that judges can use. This rule simply gives the judges freedom to use their intellectual powers to avoid the literal meanings of a statute and use a modified meaning. Consider Adler v George case where the defendant was taken to court with the offence of contravening the secrets Act, which prohibited non-authorized individuals from being found in the ‘vicinity’ of a forbidden area. The defendant pleaded not guilty since she was found inside the particular place and not near it. The court wisely used the golden rule and ruled that ‘vicinity’ referred to both near and inside a placeCITATION Luc15 \p 54 \l 1033 (Jones 2015, p. 54). If the court had used the literal rule, then they would have acquitted the offender, and in that case, the interpretation could be absurd. However, it must be noted that the court is not always free to use the golden rule as opposed to the literal rule simply because the interpretation would not be according to their wishes. There must be a genuine reason or difficulty as to why the literal rule cannot be used, but how the judges will determine the degree of genuineness or difficulty is always a matter of debate and disputeCITATION Gar14 \p 99 \l 1033 (Gary & David 2014, p. 99). Up to now, judges still disagree on which rule to use in some particular casesCITATION Reb14 \p 87 \l 1033 (Rebecca & Jacqueline 2014, p. 87).
The other rule that the judges can also use is the mischief rule. It is the most flexible approach to interpretation but is often limited in that it depends on the previous laws to interpret the current statutes. The rule allows the judges to deviate from the literal meaning of a particular word that was used before, and use the intention of parliament for a particular mischief in a way that fits the modern time. This assumes the purposive approach and it was used when the statutes were stated with their purposes and the particular mischief for which they were put in placeCITATION Luc15 \p 55 \l 1033 (Jones 2015, p. 55). The practice has since ceased, and the major question is that are the judges still able to use the rule, and to what extent can they use the rule to justify their policies that form part of the existing legislative provisions? The other question that one can ask is on what the judges do consider when determining the intentions of the legislature when the latter was coming up with the statutesCITATION Gar14 \p 101 \l 1033 (Gary & David 2014, p. 101).
Some of the legal realists in the 19th century had also argued that judges had so much discretion in interpreting the law. This kind of discretion, as they believed, was not confined by the plain meaning of the statutes. For example, in the Riggs v Palmar (1884) case, the judge defended the ruling that a heir who had murdered his/her parent could not inherit anything under the inheritance laws. Here, there was no original statutory intent for the particular case, and the judges defended themselves stating that the independent judiciary is not bound to such intent. It showed that the judges had a tendency of incorporating their own policies into the statutes, something that raised many concerns from the realists who called for policy-driven and instrumental concerns when interpreting the lawsCITATION Den101 \p 189 \l 1033 (Dennis 2010, p. 189).
Take for example the Circuit city stores v Adams case. The issue was to determin...