Statutory interpretation

Statutes are a fundamental part of our judicial system. They make up a large body of our law. The need to interpret them correctly is greatly important for sustaining certainty between decisions. The Interpretations Act 1999 replaced the previous and outdated legislation: the Interpretations Act 1924. The purposive approach was named, in Section 5(1) of the 1999 Act as the appropriate tool to use for interpreting statutes: “The meaning of an enactment must be ascertained from...