Category Archives: Interpretation
Amalia Amaya, ‘Virtuous Adjudication; or the Relevance of Judicial Character to Legal Interpretation’
Abstract The main tenet that this article aims to establish is that judicial virtue is necessary for successful legal interpretation. Theories of interpretation are exceedingly useful devices to guide and assess judicial reasoning, but they are limited in that the soundness of their outcomes is dependent upon the possession and exercise of judicial virtue. Thus, […]
‘Of Constitutions and Concertos’
Kevin Toh, Authenticity, Ontology, and Natural History: Some Reflections on Musical and Legal Interpretation, in Law Under a Democratic Constitution: Essays in Honour of Jeffrey Goldsworthy (Lisa Crawford, Patrick Emerton, and Dale Smith, eds, 2018), available at SSRN. Kevin Toh’s ‘Authenticity, Ontology, and Natural History: Some Reflections on Musical and Legal Interpretation’ offers a fresh […]
Brian Slocum, ‘Ordinary Meaning and Empiricism’
Abstract Statutory interpretation involves an interpreter determining the meaning of the text on the basis of various interpretive tools, all of which relate to the meaning of the words and their composition in light of the relevant context. Recently, with the increasing availability of scientific research tools such as corpus linguistics, advocates of such methods […]
Dimitrios Kyritsis, ‘Interpreting Legislative Intent’
Abstract Recent developments in the philosophy of language have revived philosophical interest in statutory interpretation. In particular, they have lent renewed support to the idea that legislative intent is a factual notion that determines the content of statutory law. The aim of this paper is to criticize this kind of ‘factual’ view of legislative intent. […]
Ryan Doerfler, ‘High-Stakes Interpretation’
Abstract Courts look at text differently in high-stakes cases. Statutory language that would otherwise be ‘unambiguous’ suddenly becomes ‘less than clear’. This, in turn, frees up courts to sidestep constitutional conflicts, avoid dramatic policy changes, and, more generally, get around undesirable outcomes. The standard account of this behavior is that courts’ failure to recognize ‘clear’ […]
Marcin Matczak, ‘Why Judicial Formalism is Incompatible with the Rule of Law’
Abstract Judicial formalism is perceived as fully compliant with the requirements of the rule of law. With its reliance on plain meaning and its reluctance to apply historical, purposive and functional interpretative premises, it seems an ideal tool for constraining discretionary judicial powers and securing the predictability of law’s application, which latter is one of […]
Miloš Vukotić, ‘Influence of Objective Elements on the Interpretation of Wills’
Abstract The author of the paper discusses rules relating to will execution formalities, and rules relating to interpretation of wills in order to show the importance of legal policy and general legal values for interpretation of wills. Aharon Barak’s theory of purposive interpretation is a starting point for the discussion because this theory emphasizes the […]
Macagno, Walton and Sartor, ‘Pragmatic Maxims and Presumptions in Legal Interpretation’
Abstract The fields of linguistic pragmatics and legal interpretation are deeply interrelated. The purpose of this paper is to show how pragmatics and the developments in argumentation theory can contribute to the debate on legal interpretation. The relation between the pragmatic maxims and the presumptions underlying the legal canons are brought to light, unveiling the […]
Anya Bernstein, ‘Before Interpretation’
Abstract What is it that a judge interprets in a statutory interpretation case? This Article shows that the answer to this question is surprisingly complex. First, the text that a judge interprets is not simply given. Rather, judges must select texts to interpret. Second, the background against which a judge views that text is also […]
Ethan Herenstein, ‘The Faulty Frequency Hypothesis’
Introduction: … In other words, Justice Lee and Mouritsen’s application of corpus linguistics depends on the premise that, where an ambiguous term retains two plausible meanings, the ordinary meaning of the term (and the one that ought to control) is the more frequently used meaning of the term. Call this the Frequency Hypothesis … This […]