The Nature Of Legal Interpretation

Author : Brian G. Slocum
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2017-05-17
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780226445021

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The Nature of Legal Interpretation by Brian G. Slocum Pdf

"Language shapes and reflects how we think about the world. It engages and intrigues us. Our everyday use of language is quite effortless--we are all experts on our native tongues. Despite this, issues of language and meaning have long flummoxed the judges on whom we depend for the interpretation of our most fundamental legal texts. Should a judge feel confident in defining common words in the texts without the aid of a linguist? How is the meaning communicated by the text determined? Should the communicative meaning of texts be decisive, or at least influential? ... [Contributors] argue that the meaning of language is crucial to the interpretation of legal texts, such as statutes, constitutions, and contracts. Accordingly ... analysis of language from linguists, philosophers, and legal scholars should influence how courts interpret legal texts."--

Author : Kent Greenawalt
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2010-10-27
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780199842438

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Legal Interpretation: Perspectives from Other Disciplines and Private Texts by Kent Greenawalt Pdf

In Legal Interpretation, Kent Greenawalt focuses on the complex and multi-faceted topic of textual interpretation of the law. All law needs to be interpreted, and there are many ways to do it. But what sorts of questions must one seek to answer in interpreting law and what approach should one take in each case? Whose interpretations should be prioritized? Why would one be drawn to one strategy over another? And should legal interpretation seek to satisfy specific aims or general objectives? In order to provide the answers to these questions, Greenawalt explores the ways in which interpretive strategies from other disciplines--the philosophy of language, literary and musical interpretation, religious interpretation, and general interpretive theory--can augment and enrich methods of legal interpretation. Over the course of the book, he suggests how such forms of interpretation are analogous to legal interpretation--and points to those cases in which interpretation must rest on the distinctive aspects of legal theory, such as is the case with private documents. Furthermore, Greenawalts meditation suggests that interpretive strategies from other disciplines can shed light on the essential nature of legal interpretation and provide roads by which to account for dissonance between various methods of interpretation. Legal Interpretation is a thought-provoking reflection on the ways that insights from a range of intellectual traditions can deepen our understanding of law, particularly with regard to constitutional law.

Author : Pierre-André Côté
Publisher : Cownsville, Quʹebec : Editions Y. Blais
Page : 648 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Law
ISBN : UIUC:30112054364374

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The Interpretation of Legislation in Canada by Pierre-André Côté Pdf

Author : P.J. Nerhot
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 457 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2013-04-17
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9789401578752

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Law, Interpretation and Reality by P.J. Nerhot Pdf

PATRICKNERHOT Since the two operations overlap each other so much, speaking about fact and interpretation in legal science separately would undoubtedly be highly artificial. To speak about fact in law already brings in the operation we call interpretation. EquaHy, to speak about interpretation is to deal with the method of identifying reality and therefore, in large part, to enter the area of the question of fact. By way of example, Bemard Jackson's text, which we have placed in section 11 of the first part of this volume, could no doubt just as weH have found a horne in section I. This work is aimed at analyzing this interpretation of the operation of identifying fact on the one hand and identifying the meaning of a text on the other. All philosophies of law recognize themselves in the analysis they propose for this interpretation, and we too shall seek in this volume to fumish a few elements of use for this analysis. We wish however to make it clear that our endeavour is addressed not only to legal philosophers: the nature of the interpretive act in legal science is a matter of interest to the legal practitioner too. He will find in these pages, we believe, elements that will serve hirn in rcflcction on his daily work.

Author : Fernando Atria Lemaitre,Neil MacCormick
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 837 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2017-11-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781351770101

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Law and Legal Interpretation by Fernando Atria Lemaitre,Neil MacCormick Pdf

This title was first published in 2003. Leading contemporary essays on interpretation are assembled in this volume, which offsets them against a small number of "classical" works from earlier periods. It has long been recognized that textual sources (constitutions, statutes, precedents, commentaries) are central to developed systems of law and that interpretation of such texts is one highly important element in adjudication, legal practice and legal scholarship. Scholars have also contended that the totality of legal activity is "interpretive" in a wider sense and debates about objectivity have raged. The reasons for this development are here critically scrutinized.

Author : Adrian Vermeule
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Law
ISBN : 0674022106

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Judging Under Uncertainty by Adrian Vermeule Pdf

In this book, Adrian Vermeule shows that any approach to legal interpretation rests on institutional and empirical premises about the capacities of judges and the systemic effects of their rulings. He argues that legal interpretation is above all an exercise in decisionmaking under severe empirical uncertainty.

Author : David Duarte,Pedro Moniz Lopes,Jorge Silva Sampaio
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 251 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2019-09-25
Category : Law
ISBN : 9783030186715

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Legal Interpretation and Scientific Knowledge by David Duarte,Pedro Moniz Lopes,Jorge Silva Sampaio Pdf

This book discusses the question of whether legal interpretation is a scientific activity. The law’s dependency on language, at least for the usual communication purposes, not only makes legal interpretation the main task performed by those whose work involves the law, but also an unavoidable step in the process of resolving a legal case. This task of decoding the words and sentences used by normative authorities while enacting norms, carried out in compliance with the principles and rules of the natural language adopted, is prone to all of the difficulties stemming from the uncertainty intrinsic to all linguistic conventions. In this context, seeking to determine whether legal interpretation can be scientific or, in other words, can comply with the requirements for scientific knowledge, becomes a central question. In fact, the coherent application of the law depends on a knowledge regarding the meaning of normative sentences that can be classified (at least) as being structured, systematically organized and tendentially objective. Accordingly, this book focuses on analyzing precisely these problems; its respective contributions offer a range of revealing perspectives on both the problems and their ramifications.

Author : Aharon Barak
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 444 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2011-10-16
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781400841264

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Purposive Interpretation in Law by Aharon Barak Pdf

This book presents a comprehensive theory of legal interpretation, by a leading judge and legal theorist. Currently, legal philosophers and jurists apply different theories of interpretation to constitutions, statutes, rules, wills, and contracts. Aharon Barak argues that an alternative approach--purposive interpretation--allows jurists and scholars to approach all legal texts in a similar manner while remaining sensitive to the important differences. Moreover, regardless of whether purposive interpretation amounts to a unifying theory, it would still be superior to other methods of interpretation in tackling each kind of text separately. Barak explains purposive interpretation as follows: All legal interpretation must start by establishing a range of semantic meanings for a given text, from which the legal meaning is then drawn. In purposive interpretation, the text's "purpose" is the criterion for establishing which of the semantic meanings yields the legal meaning. Establishing the ultimate purpose--and thus the legal meaning--depends on the relationship between the subjective and objective purposes; that is, between the original intent of the text's author and the intent of a reasonable author and of the legal system at the time of interpretation. This is easy to establish when the subjective and objective purposes coincide. But when they don't, the relative weight given to each purpose depends on the nature of the text. For example, subjective purpose is given substantial weight in interpreting a will; objective purpose, in interpreting a constitution. Barak develops this theory with masterful scholarship and close attention to its practical application. Throughout, he contrasts his approach with that of textualists and neotextualists such as Antonin Scalia, pragmatists such as Richard Posner, and legal philosophers such as Ronald Dworkin. This book represents a profoundly important contribution to legal scholarship and a major alternative to interpretive approaches advanced by other leading figures in the judicial world.

Author : Anne Wagner,Wouter Werner,Deborah Cao
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2007-05-16
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781402053207

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Interpretation, Law and the Construction of Meaning by Anne Wagner,Wouter Werner,Deborah Cao Pdf

The study of legal semiotics emphasizes the contingency and fluidity of legal concepts and stresses the existence of overlapping, competing and coexisting legal discourses. New problems, changing power structures and societal norms and new faces of injustice – all these force reconsideration, reformulation and even replacement of established doctrines. This book focuses on the application of law in a wide variety of contexts, including international politics and diplomatic practice.

Author : Brian G. Slocum
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 366 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2015-12-22
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780226304854

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Ordinary Meaning by Brian G. Slocum Pdf

Brian G. Slocum's Ordinary Meaning offers an extended legal-linguistic analysis of the eponymous interpretive doctrine. A centuries-old consensus exists among courts and legal scholars that words in legal texts should be interpreted in light of accepted standards of communication. Therefore the questions of what makes some meaning the ordinary one, and how the determinants of ordinary meaning are identified and conceptualized, are of crucial importance to the interpretation of legal texts. Arguing against reliance on acontextual dictionary definitions, Ordinary Meaning rigorously explores the contributions that specific context makes to meaning, along with linguistic phenomena such as indexicals and quantifiers. Slocum provides a theory and a robust general framework for how the determinants of ordinary meaning should be identified and developed.

Author : Andrei Marmor
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 488 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 1995
Category : Law
ISBN : STANFORD:36105060559171

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Law and Interpretation by Andrei Marmor Pdf

Interest in interpretation has emerged in recent years as one of the main intellectual paradigms of legal scholarship. This collection of new essays in law and interpretation provides the reader with an overview of this important topic, written by some of the most distinguished scholars in the field. The book begins with interpretation as a general method of legal theorizing, and thus provides critical assessment of the recent "interpretative turn" in jurisprudence. Further chapters include essays on the nature of interpretation, its objectivity, the possible determinacy of legal standards, and their nature. Concluding with a series of articles on the role of legislative intent in the interpretation of statutes, this work offers new and refreshing insights into this old controversy.

Author : Anne Lise Kjaer,Joanna Lam
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2022
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780190855208

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Language and Legal Interpretation in International Law by Anne Lise Kjaer,Joanna Lam Pdf

Language and Legal Interpretation in International Law sheds light on the complicated process of language interpretation that adjudicators (judges and arbitrators) and legal practitioners adopt when they act within international legal systems. The book also analyzes the role that language and the diversity of languages and national legal cultures plays in different international legal systems.

Author : Kent Greenawalt
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780199756148

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Statutory and Common Law Interpretation by Kent Greenawalt Pdf

Kent Greenwalt's second volume on aspects of legal interpretation analyzes statutory and common law interpretation, suggesting that multiple factors are important for each, and that the relation between them influences both. The book argues against any simple "textualism," claiming that even reader understanding of statutes depends partly on perceived intent. In respect to common law interpretation, use of reasoning by analogy is defended and any simple dichotomy of "holding" and "dictum" is resisted.

Author : Andrei Marmor
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 185 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2005-04-25
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781847310873

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Interpretation and Legal Theory by Andrei Marmor Pdf

This is a revised and extensively rewritten edition of one of the most influential monographs on legal philosophy published in recent years. Writing in the introduction to the first edition the author characterized Anglophone philosophers as being ..."divided, and often waver[ing] between two main philosophical objectives: the moral evaluation of law and legal institutions, and an account of its actual nature." Questions of methodology have therefore tended to be sidelined, but were bound to surface sooner or later, as they have in the later work of Ronald Dworkin. The main purpose of this book is to provide a critical assessment of Dworkin's methodological turn, away from analytical jurisprudence towards a theory of interpretation, and the issues it gives rise to. The author argues that the importance of Dworkin's interpretative turn is not that it provides a substitute for 'semantic theories of law' (a dubious concept), but that it provides a new conception of jurisprudence, aiming to present itself as a comprehensive rival to the conventionalism manifest in legal positivism. Furthermore, once the interpretative turn is regarded as an overall challenge to conventionalism, it is easier to see why it does not confine itself to a critique of method. Law as interpretation calls into question the main tenets of its positivist rival, in substance as well as method. The book re-examines conventionalism in the light of this interpretative challenge.

Author : Cameron Hutchison
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 152 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Law
ISBN : 0433494921

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The Fundamentals of Statutory Interpretation by Cameron Hutchison Pdf

"The modern principle is the official approach to statutory interpretation in Canada and is the foundation for the structure of this text. The modern principle focuses on the language of a statutory provision in light of its purpose, intent and context, and Hutchison devotes separate chapters to each of these aspects of statutory interpretation. The Fundamentals of Statutory Interpretation also critiques the various facets of the modern principle with a view to help identify more convincing interpretations of legislative intent. In addition, it tackles complicated issues concerning both the temporal application of statutes, such as retroactivity and retrospectivity, and when legislation may interfere with "vested rights.""--Publisher's website.