Statutory Interpretation

Combining pragmatics, dialectics, analytics, and legal theory, this work translates interpretative canons into patterns of natural argument.

This book offers readers concise and user-friendly tools to help articulate the most powerful arguments to identify the legislative intent found in the statute. It provides: examples and illustrations from across Canada's federal and provincial jurisdictions; detailed analysis of the key judicial decisions and a table of cases that practitioners in particular will find extremely valuable, as well as a reproduction of both the Interpretation Act (Canada) and Interpretation Act (Quebec).

"The modern principle is the official approach to statutory interpretation in Canada and is the foundation for the structure of this text. The modern principle focuses on the language of a statutory provision in light of its purpose, intent and context, and Hutchison devotes separate chapters to each of these aspects of statutory interpretation. The Fundamentals of Statutory Interpretation also critiques the various facets of the modern principle with a view to help identify more convincing interpretations of legislative intent. In addition, it tackles complicated issues concerning both the temporal application of statutes, such as retroactivity and retrospectivity, and when legislation may interfere with "vested rights.""--Publisher's website.

Contrary to traditional theories of statutory interpretation, which ground statutes in the original legislative text or intent, legal scholar William Eskridge argues that statutory interpretation changes in response to new political alignments, new interpreters, and new ideologies. It does so, first of all, because it involves richer authoritative texts than does either common law or constitutional interpretation: statutes are often complex and have a detailed legislative history. Second, Congress can, and often does, rewrite statutes when it disagrees with their interpretations; and agencies and courts attend to current as well as historical congressional preferences when they interpret statutes. Third, since statutory interpretation is as much agency-centered as judgecentered and since agency executives see their creativity as more legitimate than judges see theirs, statutory interpretation in the modern regulatory state is particularly dynamic. Eskridge also considers how different normative theories of jurisprudence--liberal, legal process, and antiliberal--inform debates about statutory interpretation. He explores what theory of statutory interpretation--if any--is required by the rule of law or by democratic theory. Finally, he provides an analytical and jurisprudential history of important debates on statutory interpretation.

This book deciphers the often confusing and contradictory rules for interpreting legal documents and explains the way these rules relate to each other. The book goes beyond the content of the rules and focuses on their strategic use in constructing arguments and justifying outcomes.

Statutory Interpretationis a practical guide to the techniques and reasoning used by lawyers and judges to resolve interpretation problems. The book deciphers the complex rules of interpretation, explains the way these rules relate to each other, and focuses on their strategic use in constructing arguments and justifying outcomes. The third edition has been updated and restructured, adding a new chapter to the Introduction that explains what is meant by "the entire context" -- the core concept of the modern principle that governs interpretation -- and shows how the various interpretive rules and presumptions fit into that complex concept. There is another new chapter on Aboriginal law and rights to reflect the increasing importance of this area of law. Finally, this edition offers an expanded, comprehensive treatment of the presumptions of legislative intent and the important role that policy plays in interpretation, even though courts are sometimes reluctant to acknowledge that role. Written by Canada's leading authority in the field, this is a desk book that no legal practitioner should be without.

This text shows how to assess legislative intention based on the binding rules, on principles derived from general policy, on presumptions as to what Parliament had in mind, and on linguistic canons of construction.