Understanding Common Law Legislation: Drafting and Interpretation

by F.A.R. Bennion

Overview

Many countries use and apply the common law. The common law world largely operates through statutes enacted by a country's democratic legislature. These statutes are drafted and interpreted according to a uniform system of rules, presumptions, principles and canons evolved over centuries by common law judges.

In this book, Francis Bennion distills forty years of his prolific writings on statute law and statutory interpretation to provide valuable guidance on statutory interpretation applicable to all common law jurisdictions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199564101
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/03/2009
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

The author was formerly one of the Parliamentary Counsel, responsible for drafting British legislation. His drafting work includes, among much constitutional and other legislation, the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. As a constitutional lawyer, he has also advised at various times the governments of Pakistan, Ghana, Jamaica, and Gibraltar. He drafted constitutions for Pakistan (1956) and Ghana (1959-1961) on those countries attaining the status of independent republics. He was also formerly law tutor at St Edmund Hall in the University of Oxford, and is currently a Research Associate of the University of Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies.

Table of Contents

1: Basic Concepts I: Common Law Statutes; The Enactment; Legal Meaning; Factual Outline and Legal Thrust; Implied Ancillary Rules
2: Basic Concepts II: Opposing Constructions; Literal, Purposive and Developmental Interpretations
3: Grammatical and Strained Meanings
4: Consequential and Rectifying Constructions
5: Contradictory Enactments and Updating Construction
6: Drafting Techniques and the Interpretation Act
7: Transitional Provisions and the Cohen Question
8: Words in Pairs
9: Rules of Interpretation
10: Legal Policy
11: Interpretative Presumptions
12: Linguistic Canons and Interpretative Technique
13: The Nature of Judgment
14: The Nature of Discretion
15: The European Union and the HRA
16: The Jurisprudential Basis of the Common Law Method
17: The Common Law System in America
18: Techniques of Law Management

Editorial Reviews

Review(s) from previous edition

"Francis Bennion brings with him years of experience in legislative drafting. The treatment is uniformly illuminating, and the style is homely."
—The Commonwealth Lawyer

"Readers who have come to expect a degree of iconoclasm from Francis Bennion will not be disappointed. he includes the occasional throwaway line which reverberates. All this serves only to increase the pleasure of reading the book: it never affects the careful objectivity which Bennion brings to bear on his subject."
—Law Quarterly Review Vol. 118, July 2002

"[This book] not only makes a good reading on understanding common law legislation but also delves into 'global techniques' of interpretation of statutes. It also offers a blue print of law curriculum on interpretation of statutes."
—K. I. Vibhute, Scholastcus, January 2004

From the Publisher