Importance of Internal Aid in English Law

Abstract

The task of interpretation may vary in difficulty. It is notable that the general methods of statutory interpretation are not themselves regulated by Parliament, but have been developed by the judges. As stated by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Ditcher v Denison, “It is a good general rule in jurisprudence that one who reads a legal document whether public or private, should not be prompt to ascribe –should not, without necessity or some sound reason, impute – to its language tautology or superfluity, and should be rather at the outset inclined to suppose every word intended to have some effect or be of some use.” A statute is a formal act of the Legislature in written form. It declares the will of the Legislature. It may be declaratory of the law, or a command which must be obeyed, or a prohibition forbidding a course of conduct or a particular act. It is a question of fact, not of law: the statute Quia Emptores (1289) provided “that an Act of Parliament is a general law whereof the judges may take knowledge, and therefore it is to be determined by them whether it is a statute or not.” When indeed, the language is not only plain, but admits of but one meaning, the task of interpretation can be said to arise. The age old process of application of the enacted law has led to formulation of certain rules of interpretation or construction. “By interpretation or Construction is meant”, says SALMOND, “the process by which the court seeks to ascertain the meaning of Legislatures through the medium of authoritative forms in which it is expressed”. The body of English law includes legislation, Common Law, and a host of other legal norms established by Parliament, the Crown, and the judiciary. English statutes have never been officially codified. There are, however, unofficial publications that organize by subject the statutes currently in force. The interpretation of statutes is a complex area of English law and also an essential one. While interpreting the meaning of provisions contained in any statute, judges and lawyers rely upon certain aids to construction which will enable them to know as to what the Legislature meant when it enacted a particular statute. A court will attempt to uncover Parliament’s intentions by using a variety of aids – these are either ‘internal or external’.One of the aids to construction of statute is internal aid. Internal aids are those that derive meaning from the internal structure of the text and common dictionary meaning. Internal aids would include interpretation sections of the Act, which state the meaning of words used in the Act. Using internal aids to interpret a statute involves examining the statute so that the meaning may be extracted from its composition and structure. This includes exploring elements such as punctuation, the title of the statute, the statute’s context, and the meaning of associated words in the statute. For example, when two words that ordinarily have similar meanings are grouped together in a statute, they must be construed so that each word is given an independent meaning. Hence, intrinsic aids confine interpretation to the four corners of the statute. For perhaps two centuries, statutes have been by far the most important source of law in common law systems. Intrinsic or internal aids are “any material which is published with an Act, but is not a substantive provision of the Act”. Examples of internal aids to construction will be: preamble to the Act, headings, marginal notes, Definition sections, provisos, explanation, schedules, etc. These are internal aids to construction because they are contained in the statute itself. Internal aids such as preamble of a statute states the main purpose the statute. Statutes are often highly complex, particularly those that enact into law broad or multifaceted federal policies Therefore internal aids hold great importance in interpretation of Statute.