Parliamentary debates..III

Denham J stated:

“If there is a plain intention expressed in the words of a statute then the court should not speculate but rather construe the Act as enacted .... Dealing with the fundamental concepts, the balancing of rights and powers under the Constitution, the primary and literal approach to the construction of the statute is appropriate.”

If reference to parliamentary material is permitted as an aid to the construction of legislation which is ambiguous, or obscure or the literal meaning of which leads to an absurdity, I believe as I have said that in practically every case it will be incumbent on those preparing the argument to examine the whole proceedings on the Bill in question in both Houses of Parliament. Questions of construction may be involved on what is said in Parliament and I cannot see how if the rule is modified in this way the parties' legal advisers could properly come to court without having looked to see whether there was anything in the Hansard report on the Bill which could assist their case. If they found a passage which they thought had a bearing on the issue in this case, that passage would have to be construed in the light of the proceedings as a whole

However, the basic rule of interpretation are as follows and there is unanimity over this rule that Legislatures speak through the words of statute and the relevance of debates and extrinsic material in incidental only.:

Obviously this thinking is far removed from the established approach to statutory interpretation in this jurisdiction. In particular, it would be impossible to reconcile it with the judgments of the majority of this Court in Howard v Commissioners of Public Works [1]. Blayney J, with whom Finlay C.J. and Denham J agreed, expounded, by reference to authoritative textbooks and case-law, the traditional rule that the intention of the legislature can be gathered only from the meaning of the words used in the legislation. Finlay C.J. added:

“I am satisfied that it would not be permissible to interpret a statute on the basis of either speculation, or indeed, even of actual information obtained with regard to the belief of individuals who either drafted the statute or took part as legislators in its enactment with regard to the question of the appropriate legal principles applicable to matters dealt with in the statute.”

[1]Howard v Commissioners of Public Works [1994] 1 I.R. 101

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