Handbook

The course looks at how statutes have been read and are being read by Australian courts. There are three components: first, the process and formalities of enacting statutes; second, the principles invoked by courts to govern their interpretation; and third, the schools of interpretation currently in play. The focus of the course is on how courts have approached actual statutes and real interpretation problems, and on what these approaches suggest about the relationship between the judiciary and the legislature.

Main Topics

• The legislative process.
• Purpose, context and extrinsic materials in reading statutes.
• Interpretation Acts and linguistic presumptions.
• Substantive presumptions, including presumptions in protection of civil liberties.
• Temporal and geographic limitations on statutes.
• Inconsistencies, repeals, amendments and consolidations.
• Statutes with a long judicial history, and the relationship between statutes and the common law.
• Theories of interpretation.