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Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts is a 2012 book by United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and lexicographer Bryan A. Garner.Following a foreword written by Frank Easterbrook, then Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Scalia and Garner present textualist principles and canons applicable to the analysis of all legal texts, following by ...
A statute, which is a bill or law passed by the legislature, imposes obligations and rules on the people. Although legislature makes the Statute, it may be open to interpretation and have ambiguities. Statutory interpretation is the process of resolving those ambiguities and deciding how a particular bill or law will apply in a particular case.
Statutory retroactivity has usually been disfavored and is in many instances forbidden by the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution. [19] Therefore: Absent a clear statement from Congress that an amendment [to a statute] should apply retroactively, we presume that it applies only prospectively to future conduct, at least to the extent that ...
The plain meaning rule dictates that statutes are to be interpreted using the ordinary meaning of the language of the statute. In other words, a statute is to be read word for word and is to be interpreted according to the ordinary meaning of the language, unless a statute explicitly defines some of its terms otherwise or unless the result ...
The golden rule in English law is one of the rules of statutory construction traditionally applied by the English courts. The rule can be used to avoid the consequences of a literal interpretation of the wording of a statute when such an interpretation would lead to a manifest absurdity or to a result that is contrary to principles of public policy.
Textualism is a formalist theory in which the interpretation of the law is based exclusively on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the law when passed, the problem it was intended to remedy, or significant questions regarding the justice or rectitude of the law.
For one, laws are intended to apply generally and it would be impossible for the legislature to foresee all the possible situations to which they might apply after their enactment. For the purpose of resolving this issue, courts have developed canons of interpretation. The rule of lenity is one such canon.
Courts in the United States and elsewhere have developed a number of principles for handling such evidence of legislative intent. For example, many courts have suggested that the comments of those opposing a bill under consideration should be treated with skepticism on the principle that opponents of a bill may often exaggerate its practical consequences.