Guide to Statutory Interpretation

Description

This book covers all aspects of statutory law, from elementary rules of parsing, through canons of construction and their justification, to the current debate over the relevance of legislative history. Starting from the basic principles of legislative supremacy and the requirement of promulgation, this guide systematically develops the process of reasoning from statutes to decisions. The author integrates jurisprudential, linguistic, social and political theory, always with a view to the pragmatic needs of students, lawyers and judges to make and communicate arguments. Contents include: inntroduction to jurisprudence of statutes; common law and statutory law; history and practice of statutory interpretation; fundamentals: reading a statute; practical aids to reading statutes; legislative intent: the basis for statutory interpretation; exercise of legislative supremacy; rules of interpretation; and propriety of extrinsic resources.