Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1999
ISSN
1440-4982
Publisher
Australian Society of Legal Philosophy
Language
En-US
Abstract
A judge or lawyer who wants to determine how a law should be applied will often refer to the "intentions" of the lawmakers. Judicial opinions, legal briefs, and scholars' writings seek guidance from what the lawmakers intended their laws to achieve (intended purposes) or how the lawmakers intended their laws to apply (contemplated applications). The idea is encapsulated in passages like the following: It is a familiar canon of construction that a thing which is within the intention of the makers of a statute is as much within the statute as if it were within the letter; and a thing which is within the letter of the statute is not within the statute, unless it be within the intention of the makers. A similar idea is employed in US constitutional adjudication. It is applied to written law generally.
Recommended Citation
David B. Lyons,
Original Intent and Legal Interpretation
,
24
Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy
1
(1999).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/535
Please note the file available on SSRN may not be the final published version of this work.
