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However, use of the literal rule may defeat the intention of Parliament. For instance, in the case of Whiteley v. Chappel, [10] the court came to the reluctant conclusion that Whiteley could not be convicted of impersonating "any person entitled to vote" at an election, because the person he impersonated was dead. Using a literal construction ...
In England and Wales, the Poor Law Amendment Act 1851, section 3, made it an offence to impersonate a "person entitled to vote" at an election.In the case of Whiteley v Chappell (1868), the literal rule of statutory interpretation was employed to find that a dead person was not a "person entitled to vote" and consequently a person accused of this offence was acquitted.
A strict application of the plain meaning rule can sometimes result in "absurd" outcomes. Examples of the plain meaning rule producing absurd outcomes can be seen in the following cases: In Whitely v Chappel (1868), a statute made it an offence "to impersonate any person entitled to vote". The defendant used the vote of a dead man.
These were: the mischief rule, the literal rule, and the golden rule. Statutes may be presumed to incorporate certain components, as Parliament is "presumed" to have intended their inclusion. [1] For example: Offences defined in criminal statutes are presumed to require mens rea (a guilty intention by the accused): Sweet v Parsley. [2]
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.
That the mischief rule can produce different outcomes than those that would result if the literal rule were applied is illustrated by Smith v Hughes [1960] 2 All E.R. 859. Under the Street Offences Act 1959 , it was a crime for prostitutes to "loiter or solicit in the street for the purposes of prostitution".
Rule 5, as advocated by James E. Krier, Earl Warren DeLano Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, and Stewart Schwab, Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, in Property Rules and Liability Rules: the Cathedral in another Light provides for a solution for the shortfalls of Rule 4. Under Rule 5, the court would use a best ...
The rule is today seen as an expression of legislative supremacy. [11] It is infrequently cited in contemporary [clarification needed] opinions. [12] During oral arguments for the 2016 case, Lockhart v. United States, [13] Justice Antonin Scalia sua sponte raised the question of the rule's application: "...what I worry about is the rule of lenity.