BLAW211: Sources of Law
Legislation
- Statutes (acts of parliament)
- Subordinate Legislation
Common Law and Equity
- Judge Made Law: interpreting legislation in court leads to this, as it gets tweaked in the process
Statute Hierarchy
- Supreme Law
- Overides Subordinate Legislation
- Overides Common Law and Equity
Parliamentary Supremacy
- Parliament can make any law at all
- cannot bind a future parliament so that they cannot undo something
Entrenchment
- to change something in parliament usually need 50% to create law, some are entrenched to 75%
- No Law needs 100%
How Statutes are Made
- Bill Proposed
- First Reading
- Select Committee stage (usually)
- Second Reading
- Committee Stage (House in Committee) usually
- Third Reading
- Royal Assent
Types of Subordinate Legislation
- Regulation and Rules
- Orders
- Notices
- Ultra Vires (Outside Powers)
Literal Rule
- Strict Literal Meaning
- use of dictionaries
- has inconsistencies (doesn't take context into account)
Golden Rule
- avoid absurdity
- recognises that wording can go further than literal meaning
Mischief Rule
- what mischief is the Act trying to prevent?
- interpretation of the words of the statute
Purposive Approach
- generally used now
- brought together Literal, Golden and Mischief Rules
- interpreting the meaning of the words, and what parliament was wanting to achieve with the legislation (its purpose)
Noscitur a Sociis
- A word is known by its neighbour
- unless context otherwise requires: "road" means any road, highway, street, lane footway, or alley
Interpretation Act 2019
- Looking through Cases (Case Law)
- Hansard: parliamentary reports
- Treaty of Waitangi
- Dictionaries