ACCA Applied Skills · Corporate and Business Law (Global) · Business, political and legal systems
A statute in country Zeda prohibits 'vehicles' from entering a public park. Delmar Ltd, a toy company, drives a remote-controlled toy car in the park, and the court must decide whether this is a vehicle. The court looks at the whole Act and concludes that its purpose is to protect the safety of pedestrians, and interprets 'vehicle' as meaning only motorised vehicles capable of carrying people. Which approach to statutory interpretation has the court used?
The court used the purposive approach. It identified the purpose of the statute, protecting pedestrian safety, and interpreted the word vehicle to fit that aim rather than applying the bare ordinary meaning or modifying it only to avoid absurdity.
- AThe purposive approach, which looks to the purpose of the legislationCorrect
- BThe literal rule, which gives words their ordinary meaning even if the result is absurd
- CThe golden rule, which modifies meaning only to avoid an absurd result
- DThe ejusdem generis rule, which limits general words following a list of specific items
Explanation
The court looked beyond the words to the Act's aim of pedestrian safety and read 'vehicle' in that light. That is the purposive approach. The literal rule would treat the toy car as a vehicle on the ordinary meaning, and ejusdem generis requires a list of specific words before the general word, which is absent here.
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