PARLIAMENT AND LAW

Grey River Argus, 12 May 1943, Page 2

PARLIAMENT AND LAW

INTERPRETATION OF STATUTES "It is axiomatic in the New Zealand courts that speeches delivered in Parliament are inadmissible for the purpose of interpreting a statute, says the New Zealand Law Journal in an editorial discussing the. inter* pretation of statutes by Ministers of the Crown. "It is obvious that this should be so. since the court must coniine itself to a consideration of the language of the statute under notice, which is the expiession of the will of the Legislature as a whole.” After citing various cases in point and quoting from judgments, the article continues that a Minister, who in most cases is a layman, should riot be expected to be competent to give a true interpretation of a statutory provision. “If he attempts to do so over the air he is incurring the risk of misleading rather than illumining the public who place reliance on what he says. We are not referring to declarations of policy given in general terms. The objection lies when a Minister, over the air, attempts to expound the meaning and effect of a particular statute or regulation. “Experience has shown that such a Ministerial interpretation is not always right. In any event, it is merely the Minister’s own personal opinion—and this can eas - ’ 1 *- be legally incorrect, and it, therefore, becomes misleading, and accordingly dangerous. So far as we can discover, the practice of Ministerial interpretation — sometimes almost clause by clause or section by section—over the air is confined to this Dominion; elsewhere, general policy statements are sometimes made, but without detailed reference, such as Lord Woolton's fireside chats on the imposition or relaxation of food rationing in Great Britain, or the Canadian Minister’s recent broadcast policy statements regarding the fixing of 'ceilings’ for wages or prices. “Without for a moment impugning the good faith of anv Minister who has expounded statutes or regulations over the air in this country, there is no doubt that the practice is one that could lead to abuse, apart from ever-present danger of erroneous interpretation. The Law Reports bear witness to many instances where the courts, in interpreting a statute or regulation, have been bound by the canons of construction to give a meaning that is different from, and sometimes opposed to, that given by the Minister on his introduction of the Bill which has emerged as the statute before the court; or the court has declared to. be ultra vires powers erroneously exercised by a Minister who obviously h.ad thought that the statute gave him such authority. “The foregoing considerations apply with greater emphasis to the explanations of statutes or regulations which, emanating from a Ministerial or departmental office, appear in the press, because the incorrect written word is more persuasively perilous than a wrong oral interpretation received over the air. In this respect the public suffers from interpretations of statutes or regulations that are too often inadequate, while sometimes they are, from the legal—that is, the correct —viewpoint, inaccurate and misleading; and, if followed they are likely to lead to unfortunate consequences.” The journal concludes that the foregoing paragraph, which might appear to be an exaggeration, was in type when it received striking confirmation in a judgment delivered bv the Full Court, which strongly criticised the interpretation put! upon the “right-hand rule” at an unregulated intersection by the Transport Department. Mr (Justice Blair, with whom the other four members of the Court concurred, said the compiler of the “Road Guide and Summary of the Traffic Regulations, 1936,” ’ had taken considerable liberties. He said the summary was not a correct .summary, and was, in places, misleading. He instanced passages which did violence to the regulation and considered that danger would result if the regulations ww? interpreted in the manner indicated in the summary.