Purposive Approach¢ The purposive approach is a modern version of the mischief rule. It is certainly more flexible than either the literal rule or the golden rule which tend to concentrate upon the meaning of individual words or phrases. This rule allows a judge to add or ignore words in an Act to help them give a decision that | supports, in their view why the Act was created.2. What was the mischief and defect for which the common law did not provide? 1. What was the common law before the making of the Act? he mischief rule Heydon’s case 1584 3. What is the remedy no provided by the Act of Parliament to deal with the mischief or defect for which the common law did not provide a 4. The true reason of the remedy e court then interprets the Act In such a way as to cure the “mischief”* The modern approach to the interpretation of an Act of Parliament is what is termed the Purposive Approach. The Purposive Approach takes account not only of the words of the Act according to their ordinary meaning but also the context. ‘Context’ here does not mean simply ‘linguistic context’; the subject-matter, scope, purpose and (to some extent) background of the Act are also taken into consideration.Mischief rule v Purposive approach The mischief rule: The mischief rule looks for the gap between previous legislation and aim to find the mischief the legislation being considered, aimed to fix. The purposive approach: The purposive approach (PA) to statutory interpretation seeks to look for the purpose of the legislation before interpreting the wordsVery similar to the mischief rule It goes beyond ‘filling the gaps’ in a statute It looks at what Parliament meant to achieve It looks for the purpose of the ActLiteral Rule vs. Purposive Approach * The literal approach takes each word literally. The purposive approach is very broad and does not look at the precise meaning of each word. Golden Rule vs. Purposive Approach * Golden rules look to the actual wording of the statutes. The mischief and purposive approach go beyond that.The Rules of Statutory interpretation 1. The Literal Rule — Every day meanings of words 2. The Golden Rule — Words interpreted to avoid absurdity Zz 3. The Mischief Rule << — Words interpreted to fill in the gaps in the original Act 4. The Purposive Approach — Very wide interpretation to give meaning to purpose of the ActR v Secretary of State for Health ex a parte Quintavalle [2003] 2 WLR 692 ¥ re ot: BO { . e: e: ate pe Se | (une Vi pes* The Pro Life Alliance argued that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority did not have authority to licence research with regards to cloning. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 granted the Authority the right to licence research with regards to embryos. An embryo was defined in the Act as ‘a live human embryo’ where fertilisation is complete’. However, embryos created using cloning are not fertilised.Held: The House of Lords held that the cloned embryos were covered by the statute taking a purposive approach to statutory interpretation. Lord Bingham: "The court's task, within the permissible bounds of interpretation, is to give effect to Parliament's purpose. So the controversial provisions should be read in the context of the statute as a whole, and the statute as a whole should be read in the historical context of the situation which led to its enactment....While it is impermissible to ask what Parliament would have done if the facts had been before it, there is one important question which may permissibly be asked: it is whether Parliament, faced with the taxing task of enacting a legislative solution to the difficult religious, moral and scientific issues mentioned above, could rationally have intended to leave live human embryos created by CNR outside the scope of regulation had it known of them as a scientific possibility. There is only one possible answer to this question and it is negative."All India Reporter Karamchari Sangh v. All India Reporter Ltd. AIR 1988 SC 1325* The question which arises for consideration in this case is: — whether the law reports namely, * Allindia Reporter, * Criminal Law Journal, * Labour and Industrial Cases, * Taxation Law Reports, * Allahabad Law Journal and * U.P. Law Tribune published by Respondent , All India Reporter Limited, are newspapers as defined in the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955 — whether the employees of Respondent engaged in the production or publication of the said law reports are entitled to the benefits conferred upon the employees of newspaper establishments by the Act.Object of the Act * To regulate certain conditions of service of working journalists and other employees employed in the newspaper establishments.* The expression “newspaper” is defined by Section 2(b) of the Act as follows: « “ ‘Newspaper’ means any printed periodical work containing public news or comments on public news and includes such other class of printed periodical work as may, from time to time, be notified in this behalf by the Central Government in the official Gazette.” Eo.* In order to be a newspaper, a work must be (i) a printed work, (ii) a periodical, and (iii) should contain public news or comments on public news.* A “newspaper employee” is defined by Section 2(c) of the Act as any working journalist, and includes any other person employed to do any work in, or in relation to, any newspaper establishment.* “Newspaper establishment” is defined by Section 2(d) of the Act as an establishment under the control of any person or body of persons, whether incorporated or not, for the production or publication of one or more newspapers or for conducting any news agency or syndicate.* The expression “working journalist” is defined by Section 2(f) of the Act as a person whose principal avocation is that of a journalist and who is employed as such, either whole time or part-time, in or in relation to, one or more newspaper establishments and includes an editor, a leader writer, news editor, sub-editor, feature writer, copy-tester, reporter, correspondent, cartoonist, news photographer and proof-reader, but does not include any such person who is employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity, or being employed in a supervisory capacity, performs, either by the nature of the duties attached to his office or by reason of the powers vested in him, functions mainly of a managerial nature.* It was urged before the High Court on behalf of Respondent , All India Reporter Limited, that the law reports published by it were not newspapers as defined in the Act and therefore the order made by the Central Government on the basis of the recommendations of Justice Palekar were not applicable to its establishment. * The High Court accepted the plea of Respondent and declared that the law reports were not newspapers within the meaning of Section 2(b) of the Act and that the demand made by the Deputy Labour Commissioner to comply with the order made by the Central Government on the basis of the recommendations of Justice Palekar was unsustainable by its judgment. * Aggrieved by the decision of the High Court the appellants have filed this appeal by special leave.* In order to be a newspaper a work must be a (i) printed work; (ii) a periodical; and (iii) should contain public news or comments on public news. Any other class of printed periodical work as may, from time to time, be notified in this behalf by the Central Government in the Official Gazette may also be a newspaper. * There is no dispute in the present case that the law reports are printed works and that they are periodicals. ¢* The only question which remains to be considered is whether they contain public news or comments on public news.* The expression “news” is not defined in the Act. * According to Shorter Oxford English Dictionary “news” means tidings, new information of recent events; new occurrences as a subject of report or talk.* The law reports which are being published by Respondent are reports of recent decisions of the Supreme Court of India and of the High Courts in India which are supplied to it by its agents appointed at New Delhi and other places where High Courts are situated. It cannot be disputed that these decisions are of public importance. Article 141 of the Constitution provides that the law declared by Supreme Court shall be binding on all courts within the territory of India. Even apart from Article 141 of the Constitution the decisions of the Supreme Court, which is a court of record, constitute a source of law as they are the judicial precedents of the highest court of the land.* Hence it is difficult to agree with the submission made on behalf of Respondent that the law reports do not carry any news and that the public is not interested in them. * We are of the view that any decision published in the law reports of Respondent contain information about the recent events which have taken place in the Supreme Court or in the High Courts which are public bodies and these are matters in which the public is interested. * We find it also difficult to agree with the submission made on behalf of Respondent that since the law reports are going to be preserved by the lawyers as reference books after getting them rebound subsequently they should be treated as books. It may be that the decisions contained in these law reports may cease to be items of news after some time but when they are received by the subscribers theydo possess the character of works containing news.