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Rules of statutory interpretation - Coggle Diagram

- - - - The defendant was charged with an offence under section 3 of the Official Secrets Act 1920 of obstructing a member of the armed forces 'in the vicinity of any prohibited place’.
      - The defendant was in an RAF station which was a prohibited place for the purposes of the Official Secrets Act.
      - It was argued on his behalf that 'in the vicinity of' meant near to, whereas the obstruction had occurred within the prohibited place and thus fell outside the Act.
      - Parker LJ stated that it would be 'absurd' if it were an offence for an obstruction to take place just outside the RAF station but not where the obstruction took place in the RAF station.
      - He therefore held that 'in the vicinity of' should be read as 'in or in the vicinity of'.
- - - - This is the most recent 'rule' and most accurately reflects how modern judges approach their interpretive task.
      - In R v Secretary of State for Health ex parte Quintavalle [2003] UKHL 13, Lord Steyn observed (at paragraph 21) that:
      - 'The pendulum has swung towards purposive methods of construction. This change was not initiated by the teleological approach of European Community jurisprudence, and the influence of European legal culture generally, but it has been accelerated by European ideas: … [N]owadays the shift towards purposive interpretation is not in doubt. The qualification is that the degree of liberality permitted is influenced by the context…’
      - You will see later in the course (and notably in Public Law II) that the courts have been given additional powers of interpretation under the Human Rights Act 1998, which allow them, where appropriate, to interpret legislation in a (purposive) way to seek compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights.