Roderick Ramage explains how George Coode’s tract On Legislative Expression enables reverse engineering to unlock the meaning of unclear legislation
- An analysis of the underlying principles of legislation can enable a simple list of tests to be refined to assist in the interpretation of legislation (and also private documents), if the legislators’ intention is not clear.
In my article ‘Will or Shall?’, published in NLJ on 20 April 1970, I mentioned the four elements of a legal expression identified by George Coode (1807–1869, of Inner Temple), but only as a background to his guidance about the use and misuse of the word ‘shall’. Next, I explained the four elements more fully in my article ‘Effective draftsmanship (Pt 2)’ 155 NLJ 32 on 7 January 2005 and their relevance to the drafting of private documents as well as legislation. Now I propose the use of these elements as an aid to interpreting Parliament’s intention.
Commands such as ‘No smoking’ on a railway carriage window are clear and effective legal expressions, but normally the requirements
