Abstract
Abstract In contrast to the highly linguistic methods of statutory interpretation, purely common law argument from decided cases and their enshrined principles has a greater fluidity. Contrary to much lay opinion, common law still accounts for perhaps as much as half of the cases before the higher courts. In this book the common law is mainly studied in terms of criminal law, public law, and the general law of obligations, although large parts of contract and land law are predominantly uncodified. From the overall perspective of this book our task in this chapter is harder than in Chapter 3. There is very little in democratic thought, or in the working assumptions of the British constitution, that can legitimize judicial discretion in statutory interpretation if that discretion is widely used to make legislation mean what an individual judge can persuade his colleagues to agree it means in pursuit of his own beliefs. If slot machine jurisprudence can be expected anywhere, it is in statutory interpretation.
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