Statutory Interpretation

Congress’s national-security legislation will often require clear and specific congressional authorization before the executive can undertake certain actions. The War Powers Resolution, for example, prohibits any law from authorizing military hostilities unless it “specifically authorizes” them. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 required its own amendment or repeal of its "exclusive means" provision before authorizing warrantless electronic surveillance. But efforts to legislate clear-statement regimes in national-security law have failed to induce compliance. The Clinton Administration inferred congressional "authorization" for the 1999 Kosovo War from an appropriations statute that failed to specifically authorize the conflict. And the Bush Administration inferred congressional "authorization" for the NSA surveillance program from ambiguous language in the post- September 11th Authorization to Use Military Force. In both situations, executive-branch lawyers employed expansive theories of implied repeal and constitutional avoidance to evade the codified clear-statement requirements, and Congress and the courts acquiesced to the President's actions. Recent proposals to strengthen the clear-statement requirements in Congress's national security framework legislation are unlikely to be effective without institutional mechanisms, such as points of order, that can deter future legislators from enacting vague or ambiguous legislation from which the executive might claim implicit congressional" authorization," and that can induce Congress to confront Presidents who act without specific congressional authorization. Simply enacting more narrow or explicit clear-statement requirements, or adding funding restrictions to Congress's framework legislation, fails to counter the aggressive interpretive doctrines that executives of both political parties have used to concoct congressional "authorization" from vague or ambiguous statutory language.

In what follows, the legislative powers of the courts are examined and three different ways in which the courts can contribute to the regulation of the labour markets are marked. First, the courts can create new regulation through their interpretative mandate. Second, the courts can create new regulation through their remedial powers following a finding of unconstitutionality of existing rules and regulations. Third, courts can also cause further regulation by the legislature in their handling of and handling of legislation. Attention is drawn to the importance of legislation in general but also to the particular importance of labour legislation with regard to the regulation of society and the labour markets. Furthermore, the inherent law - making function of the courts is described. It is noted that certain concepts have been drafted vaguely and broadly in order to leave it to the courts to interpret the provisions of such legislation and to give substance to them. The courts are therefore important actors in the flexibility / security debate as they “create” rules and regulations through their interpretive mandate. However, it is further argued that (due to the openness of language) this phenomenon cannot be limited to those cases that can be described as vague and broad. The interpretative approaches of the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court, respectively, with regard to labour matters, are examined. However, the courts can also create law following a finding of unconstitutionality in terms of section 172 (1) (a) of the Constitution and can also cause further intervention by the legislature in the labour market. This phenomenon raises questions about how courts can contribute to the flexibility / security debate and the regulation of the labour markets.

The rise of legislation as the increasingly preferred means of
regulating society is considered. The rise of legislation is significant as an
increase of legislation strengthens the argument as to the importance of the
interpretation of statutes. This article considers the term "legislation". The rise of legislation is examined with an emphasis on the advantages and disadvantages
thereof. Next, the rise of legislation in the context of labour law is considered
through an examination of the purpose(s) of labour law and legislation as the
increasingly preferred way to regulate work in the context of an increase in
atypical employment relationships. It is argued that the primacy of collective
bargaining has given way to the primacy of legislation.

This article considers the rise of legislation as a means to regulate work in
South Africa, with an emphasis on the significant amount of enacted labour law
that has been adopted. The conclusion is that regulation by means of legislation
has become the dominant source of law, and that within the context of global
pressures and a re-evaluation of the purpose(s) of labour law legislation is an
indispensable source of law for the regulation of work. This conclusion necessitates an increased analysis and appraisal of the relevant interpretive methodologies, approaches and principles.

The Indian tax system suffers from an excessive incidence and pendency of tax disputes before civil courts. A certain degree of disputes are unavoidable since the tax code and policy of any jurisdiction (being the outcome of various competing factors) inevitably contains a certain degree of ambiguity. However, a significant amount of unnecessary tax litigation is caused by the development of inconsistent tax jurisprudence. The author details the permissible scope of litigation expected in a tax system that truly complies with the rule of law. Following this, the author surveys two major areas of disputes – namely, the distinction between a “tax” and “fees”, and the interpretation of exemption notifications. This demonstrates the significant likelihood of judicial activism by appellate courts in tax disputes, which contributes to a tax policy that is doctrinally incoherent. It is submitted that inconsistent tax jurisprudence contributes to a larger number of disputes since both the t...

This article considers the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018's insurer liability model. Comparing the position in Scotland with that in England and Wales, it analyses the private law obligations imposed on insurers by the Act in their doctrinal context. It argues that the Act’s two-stage hybrid liability model destabilises the traditional boundaries between delict/tort and contract. Detailing the operation of the framework for insurer recoveries under s 5, it contends that the Act creates novel grounds of action that fly in the face of long-established legal principle that will likely cause needless and intractable disputes. Specifically, in areas relating to time bar, res judicata and illiquid debts. By operation of the law in both jurisdictions governing compensation and unjustified enrichment, many of these provisions are redundant. Consequently, the Act ought to and can readily be amended to resolve these issues.

A jog elméletének és gyakorlatának talán legfontosabb közös szegmense a jogértelmezés témaköre; nincs olyan neves elméleti szerző, jogfilozófus, jogbölcsész vagy mélyebb összefüggéseket feltárni igyekvő gyakorlati jogász, akinek ne lenne elgondolása arról, mi alapján és mi módon történik ténylegesen a bírói döntéshozatal. Hogyan születik meg valójában a bíró fejében az az ítéleti verzió, amely végül döntése alapjául szolgál; milyen jogalkalmazási lépcsőkön keresztül és milyen pszichológiai úton jut el a bíró a keresetlevél elolvasásától az ítéleti indokolás megszövegezéséig; mennyiben határozza meg ezt a pszichológiai döntési utat a történeti tényállás, és mennyiben a jogi normákra való odafigyelés; mennyiben tekinthető a döntés meghozatala és a döntés igazolása a jogalkalmazás két, logikailag egymásra épülő fázisának, vagy mennyiben és milyen mértékben független az utóbbi az előbbitől: olyan  kérdések ezek, melyek a jogról való gondolkodás kialakulásától kezdve foglalkoztatták a jogászokat és a jog iránt érdeklődő laikus bölcselőket. E rendkívül tág problémakör egyik jól körülhatárolható része a jogértelmezés módszereinek témaköre, vagyis az arra a kérdésre adandó válasz keresése, hogy a bíróságok milyen metódusok segítségével állapítják vagy állapíthatják meg egy jogi rendelkezés értelmét, ha az adott norma szövege nem világos, vagy annak alkalmazhatósága a konkrét eset konkrét körülményei fényében nem egyértelmű. Jelen tanulmányban ismertetjük azokat az eredményeket, amelyeket egy kifejezetten e célból, nevezetesen a magyar felsőbírósági jogértelmezés során ténylegesen használt módszerek feltérképezése céljából 2009-ben és 2011-ben lefolytatott kutatásunk során tártunk fel.

The main aim of this paper is to create a semi-formal model of reasoning with cases in statutory interpretation. We introduce the notion of reasoning protocol as a frame for a set of elements used by relevant agents to justify their claims. Our model allows us to represent reasoning not only with factors, but also about the relevance of factors in deciding legal cases on the basis of statutory rules.

the conventional perseverance of this research paper is to clarify the concept of statutory interpretation in terms of the common law approach of interpretation. Because (the research topic) will be working with these statutes, law students, lawyers, judges, and anyone else in the legal profession must know how to interpret them whenever a legislative body passes a new statute or an amendment. The major goal of the analysis is to learn about the new changes that are occurring as a result of the legislation, as well as the societal effects of that legislation. The principal purpose of this research is to compare the judicial application of statutory construction and interpretation. So that the contrast can assist the judges to know the crucial phases of statutory provisions. Because the fundamental job of the judge as a judicial head is to interpret the statute, which is usually done by judges.

ABSTRACT This commentary seeks to define the limits of dynamic interpretation and to increase the transparency of judicial reasoning, both as a means of allowing a better judgment about the quality of judicial interpretation, and as an avowed way of constraining judicial activism, now increasingly in vogue with conservative judges. First, the commentary analyzes Dynamic Statutory Interpretation as well as subsequent work by Eskridge, in particular his analysis of the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, to emphasize that dynamic interpretation does not reject "outdated" expectation but "fuses" original and present horizons. Second, the commentary critiques the pathbreaking Eskridge & Frickey "Funnel of Abstraction," suggesting that a three-dimensional "Cube of Statutory Interpretation" better models judicial decisionmaking. In particular, the Cube highlights three analytically distinct modes of reasoning: 1) sincere efforts to effectuate the legislative directive; 2) interpretation based on "normative" canons of interpretation designed to effectuate judge-made rules; 3) judicial efforts to achieve the best policy or most just result in the case at hand. Third, the commentary analyzes three distinct ways in which judges can use dynamic interpretation: (1) evolutive considerations render original expectations unintelligible or unreliable, so that a judge may justify resolving the issue based on modern-day policy considerations or a preferred normative canon; (2) an interpretation consistent with modern doctrines reflected in related areas of the law differs from original expectations, so that a judge may justify a decision that results in greater horizontal coherence of the corpus juris; or (3) evolutive considerations allow the judge to more effectively carry out the original legislative directive than an approach that more simplistically resolves a case in today's world in the precisely identical way that the same legal issue would have been resolved in the very different world of the enacting legislature.

The identification of the parties to the employment relationship is a universal issue. It is therefore appropriate to explore the international experience as well as the experiences of other jurisdictions in order to clarify its South African understanding. The contribution explores how the standards of the International Labor Organization can shed light on the question of who a party to an employment relationship is. The article explores relevant issues that have arisen in other legal systems. The aspects include, among others: definitions applicable to the binary separation between employees and independent contractors; the difference between employees and independent contractors; the applicability of the employment contract and factors relevant to the identification of an employment relationship. The above issues are elucidated on the basis of the legal positions in Germany, India, Canada, Morocco, Namibia, the Netherlands, Swaziland, Tanzania, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe.
The eight key conventions that form the basis of the International Labor Organization's decent work agenda "apply to all workers. Similarly, several other international labor standards examined apply to all workers, although some instruments apply only to workers who can be considered employees. However, the Employment Relationship Recommendation, 2006 recognizes that some workers may be denied labor protection because they belong to a certain job category. In particular, it is justified to exclude independent contractors.
The investigation into the position in other countries has shown that there are other legal and legislative responses to the issue. While the existence of the employment contract is a prerequisite for the existence of an employment relationship in several countries, there are examples where the employment relationship can exist without the conclusion of an employment contract. In some countries there is no legislative definition of an "employee", while other countries prescribe extensive definitions of it. Several countries consider certain categories of workers as employees in order to clear up any uncertainty about their status. The courts in several countries will uphold the true nature of an employment relationship despite attempts to portray an employer, or employment relationship, as something else. The authors also examined the factors used in other countries to determine the parties to the employment relationship.

An epistemological analysis of common law doctrinal legal methodology seeks to answer one basic question: why is doctrinal legal method the best approach for acquiring knowledge about law? A lawyer might provide a pragmatic answer—because that is the method that the judge will use when deciding cases; and a judge could provide an institutional answer—he or she is bound by law to abide by the official legal texts. Yet, an epistemological justification requires more. As a starting point, one needs a theory that justifies the objective existence of a socially constructed phenomenon called ‘law’. If we accept Searle’s account of social facts, and we accept that reflective equilibrium is at work within the individuals within a particular jurisdiction as they acquire knowledge about law, then doctrinal method can regarded as the most important source of the social agreement that brings about the objective existence of law. This is so because law is created and modified by applying doctrinal method—legislative utterances provide the constitutive rules that govern socially constructed things. Meanwhile, uncertainty within these texts are adjudicated by the courts, and the utterances of the court are also official legal texts. As such, the courts act as arbiters of social reality, and this arbitration provides a solution to the problem of intersubjectivity by converting anecdotal interpretations into official determinations as agreed upon by collective intentionality. As a result, in a common law jurisdiction, the doctrinal research methodology is the best way of acquiring knowledge about the law. Legal realism provides the most prominent criticism of doctrinal method, but in practice, realist claims are limited by doctrinal method: where the law, as determined by doctrinal method, is clear, the critique lacks credibility. Thus realism points out the epistemological limitations of doctrinal method and does not undermine the core of it.

A substantial academic literature considers how agencies should interpret statutes. But few studies have considered how agencies actually do interpret statutes, and none has empirically compared the methodologies of agencies and courts in practice. This Article conducts such a comparison, using a newly created dataset of all Internal Revenue Service (IRS) publications ever released, along with an existing dataset of court decisions. It applies natural language processing, machine learning, and regression analysis to map methodological trends and to test whether particular authorities have developed unique cultures of statutory interpretation.

It finds that, over time, the IRS has increasingly made rules on normative policy grounds (like fairness and efficiency) rather than merely producing rules based on the “best reading” of the relevant statute (under any interpretive theory, like purposivism or textualism). Moreover, when the IRS does focus on the statute, it has grown much more purposivist over time. In contrast, the Tax Court has not grown more normative and has followed the same trend toward textualism as most other courts. But although the Tax Court has become more broadly textualist, it prioritizes different interpretive tools than other courts, like Chevron deference and holistic-textual canons of interpretation. This suggests that each authority adopts its own flavor of textualism or purposivism.

These findings complicate the literature on tax exceptionalism and the judicial nature of the Tax Court. They also inform ongoing debates about judicial deference and the future of doctrines like Chevron and Skidmore deference. Most broadly, they provide an empirical counterpoint to the existing theoretical literature on statutory interpretation by agencies.

Constitutional interpretation, or constitutional construction, is the process by which meanings are assigned to words in a constitution, to enable legal decisions to be made that are justified by it. The Constitution is a legal document that is Sui Generis “unique” and must be construed as a special document. The interpretation of the Constitution is provided for under Art. 257 of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda (herein referred to as “the Constitution”). Courts are often alive to its peculiar nature and have over the years developed principles followed in interpretation of the Constitution and these are discussed in this paper. The emphasis is put on Ugandan cases, however some cases from other jurisdictions were also adopted.

This Article studies judicial innovation and diffusion in civil law jurisdictions, with a focus on China. It examines the lawmaking function of the Chinese judiciary, in particular, the interaction between the Chinese Supreme People’s Court and lower courts in innovating legal doctrines in response to social needs. The fruit of this inquiry should be of interest to researchers seeking a theoretical understanding of the development of Chinese law and to practitioners who are trying to predict legal and regulatory trends in China.

Since the 1980s, the confluence of two factors, the norm of judicial openness and the medium of the Internet, have made prior judicial decisions an accessible and convenient resource for Chinese judges, who are confronting hard cases or novel situations. The accessibility of decided cases provides judges with an avenue to consult their peers throughout the country on legal interpretation. These decisions serve as a forum for political communication between courts that indicate the acceptability and feasibility of policy innovations in the law. To elucidate the techniques that Chinese judges employ to make policy innovations in a jurisdiction that is statute- based, I deploy a multi-faceted approach that encompasses case studies, as well as surveys and interviews among Chinese judges and law clerks. This Article aims to demonstrate that judges operating in a jurisdiction rooted in the civil law tradition are, nevertheless, able to render the law more responsive to societal conditions through artful statutory interpretation. In addition, judicial innovations in China survive due to the silent and incremental assimilation of prior judicial decisions into Chinese judicial decision-making. Some of these innovations might, however, fade because of political pressure or the transience of the social conditions that gave rise to them.

This article considers the utility of the presumptions of statutory interpretation and the appropriate status thereof in a legal system. Thereafter, the most commonly cited South African presumptions will be compared to similar presumptions (or canons) of statutory interpretation in the US. It should be noted that although both jurisdictions contain the principles or standards inherent to these presumptions, they are often described differently in the USA: not as presumptions but as canons of statutory interpretation. Irrespective of the difference in terminology, it will be argued that all canons or presumptions of statutory interpretation are manifestations of legal standards, principles or public values in the USA and South African legal systems. It will be shown that some even perceive these standards to be akin in status to constitutional values.

Adoption of Children in Islam and the Muslim Law of Sri Lanka – An Abstract
This is a slightly modified version of an article previously published under the same title in [2008] Meezan pages 1 to 5. Meezan is an annual publication of the Law Students’ Muslim Majlis of the Sri Lanka Law College.
Islam encourages charity, and also insists that those who have the means should care for orphans and other needy children in the same way as they would care for their own children. Islam recognizes the foster parent relationship, but does not sanction adoption tin the sense in which it is used in the Sri Lankan Adoption of Children Ordinance No. 24 of 1941. This Ordinance expressly provides that “upon an adoption order being made, the adopted child shall for all purposes whatsoever be deemed in law to be the child born in lawful wedlock of the adopter.”
In a landmark decision Ghouse v Ghouse [1988] 1 SLR 25, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka examined the implications of this provision in the context of intestate succession rights of an adopted child. This article examines in great detail, the sharia't concept of kafala (foster care) in the light of relevant statutory provisions and judicial decisions, and attempts to resolve apparent conflicts and contradictions in the legal fabric.

Textualism is the doctrine of statutory interpretation propounded by a small group of US federal court judges, including the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Whilst the doctrine has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, few have considered its historical development. In this dissertation, textualism is analysed in order to uncover the core principles and sets of rules from which it is comprised. Then, the development of these principles and sets of rules is traced back through the treatises on statutory interpretation published in England and America in the Victorian era, which were well-known to and frequently cited by Justice Scalia. Textualism is revealed to be an Anglo-American doctrine that emerged over the course of the nineteenth century; and it was made explicit in the treatises on statutory interpretation, which developed via a transatlantic scholarly dialogue. The doctrine fell out of favour in the US as the nineteenth century drew to a close; and around the same time, the rule prohibiting recourse to legislative history, a core feature of textualism, became subject to significant judicial challenge in England. The matter was resolved by a landmark decision in 1906, after which time the doctrine became firmly entrenched in England until approximately the 1980s. Textualism’s long tenure in England demonstrates how a doctrinal common law theory typical of the late Victorian era persisted for more than a century despite variations in judicial application of the rules from which the doctrine is comprised, criticism from within the legal community, and significant social change over time. The modern US revival of this doctrine is further testament to textualism’s tenacity. Whilst many scholars have found the doctrine to be problematic, it has remained attractive to common law judges from the time of its emergence in the middle of the nineteenth century through to the present. This is so because textualism was developed and refined through doctrinal legal scholarship, and as a result, it is consistent with traditional common law modes of reasoning, and it is tailor-made to meet the needs of judges deciding cases.

The study, entitled “Identification of the parties to the employment relationship: an appraisal of teleological interpretation of statutes”, is a legal-interdisciplinary doctrinal investigation situated within the fields of labour law and the interpretation of statutes. It concerns itself with the proper interpretation of labour legislation in general and the interpretive question as to who should be party to the employment relationship in particular, within the context of the advent of constitutionalism and the proliferation of and the increase in the importance of labour legislation. In law, meaning-generation is a function of statutory interpretation and every application of a text to particular circumstances entails interpretation. The protection extended by labour legislation is only extended to those persons who are defined as “employees”.
The study describes the teleological model of statutory interpretation, which aims to give effect to the purpose of a legislative provision in light of constitutional values. The study explores the five elements of (teleological) interpretation that should be considered when interpreting concepts such as “employee”: the text, the context, the telos (or values), the history and the comparative dimension. The chief findings of the study includes: that legislation has become an indispensable source of contemporary labour law; that the courts have adopted a teleological approach to the interpretation of statutes; that the courts have, in interpreting the term “employee”, adopted a teleological approach to the interpretation of statutes; and that the interpretations advanced by the courts have not had the profound effect envisaged by the Constitution on the transformation of society.

Michael Bishop and Jason Brickhill, 'In the Beginning Was the Word: The Role of Text in the Interpretation of Statutes' (2012) 129 S African LJ 681

This article deals with statutory interpretation under the South African Constitution. It has been cited with approval several times by the South African Constitutional Court.

The article takes as its point of departure a set of recent decisions in which the Constitutional Court has interpreted legislation in a manner that is incompatible with the words of the statutes. This article criticises the Court’s approach in these cases and argues for a return to the carefully calibrated approach to interpretation that the Court has always advocated. We describe the Court’s current interpretive doctrine to set the scene for the charge that the Court has been unfaithful to that approach. We then discuss each of the six cases – SAPS, Chirwa, Director of Public Prosecutions, Bertie Van Zyl African National Congress, and Van Vuuren. Read together, these cases indicate that, when it suits it, the Court is willing to ignore legislative text. This unrestrained interpretive method threatens the rule of law and the separation of powers. We argue that there are three drivers of this approach: practitioners’ and courts’ over-use of section 39(2); an academic legal culture that encourages disregard for the text; and the single-step structure of the interpretive method. We propose a two-stage approach to mitigate these risks: first, identifying the available meanings and explaining how they fit the text; and, second, relying on the values of the Constitution to choose a meaning. We do not call for a return to the arid literalism of yesteryear, and support the Court’s attempt to secure just outcomes, but argue that it may do so without sacrificing the text.

Almost every debate in statutory interpretation is framed as an argument between “Purposivists” and “Textualists.” This overlooks a remarkable and increasingly important area of interpretive disagreement—disagreements between Textualists. While the lines of division between Purposivists and Textualists are intensely studied and thought to be well understood, the question of how interpreters applying what they believe to be the same interpretive methodology argue with each other has received far less attention, even as highly-Textualist interpretation has risen to prominence in federal and state courts. What divides Textualists from other Textualists? Just posing the question raises many issues. What defines Textualism? When Textualists argue, what makes one textual argument superior to another? Is it even possible to argue over word and sentence meaning in a satisfying way?

This Article aims to explore this gap in the literature. It describes the areas over which Textualists argue when they argue about Textualism. In undertaking this exploration, it draws a number of conclusions, both about the structure of interpretive argument and about the modern meaning of Textualism itself. In doing so, it uncovers new areas of interpretive and normative conflict that seem to underlie interpretive disputes of all sorts—including those that divide interpreters of all stripes, not simply Textualists from one another.

Under the supervision of PROF. RAHUL MISHRA SUBMITTED BY-NAMAN JAIN (0029) COURSE-BBALLB ABSTRACT Interpretation is the art of discovering the true meaning of a law by giving the words of the law their natural and ordinary meaning. It is the process of determining the true meaning of the words used in a law. The Court is not expected to interpret arbitrarily and, as a result, certain principles have emerged from the continued practice of the courts. These principles are sometimes called "rules of interpretation." The court relies on any of the rules that produce an outcome that satisfies its sense of justice in the case before it. While the literal rule is the one most often mentioned in express terms, the courts consider all three to be valid and cite them as ad hoc requirements, but of course they do not give any reason for choosing one over the other.  1 | Page

The aim of this article is to critically examine relevant provisions of the Act, especially in relation to government policy and executive decision making. In doing so, the author would succinctly outline the provisions of the Act and this will be followed by a brief examination of established principles guiding statutory interpretation under the common law system. This paper will thereafter proceed to examine specific provisions of the Act particularly in the context of certain controversial executive policies. The article will be concluded with the author making certain recommendations in relation to the NYSC scheme in general.

What methods, if at all, do Indian judges deploy in their law reading? In their abundant refer- ences to the term “jurisprudence”, the Indian judge gives neither precise meanings nor meth- ods to ascertaining what is jurisprudence; the judges declare when purposively breaking new grounds, or, the state constitutively roots for a strict, even a conservative, reading of its will and legislative intention. Judges while read penal and taxation statutes strictly, at the Indian Supreme Court the "ends of justice" clearly override, as it should, positivist interpretations. The legislature and the executive therefore tolerate the Supreme Court’s purposive reading down of the colonial statutes, just as, conversely, they reject the Court’s "reading down and reading wide" of politically sensitive public law statutes to defend their postcolonial intent. I aim to map the uncertain landscape of the Indian Supreme Court’s use of “jurisprudence” and jurisprudence’s relationship with statutory interpretation.

Jelen tanulmányban arra vállalkozunk, hogy röviden bemutassuk a jogértelmezés módszereinek elmélettörténeti fejlődési útját, vagyis azt, hogy a jogértelmezési metódusok lehetséges fajtáiról való teoretikus gondolkodás – annak legfontosabb állomásait tekintve – hogyan alakult napjainkig, illetve hogy kik voltak azok a főbb szerzők, akik meghatározó álláspontot foglaltak el a jogértelmezési módszerek meghatározásában és csoportosításában; majd esszénk második felében – felhasználva az e témakörben már elért eredményeket – felvázolunk egy olyan alternatív jogértelmezési módszertani klasszifikációt (egyúttal definiálva, illetve egymástól elhatárolva az egyes hermeneutikai eljárásokat), amely a modern jogalkalmazásban, így a magyar bíróságok, illetve a különböző európai országok bíróságainak és a nemzetközi jogalkalmazó fórumoknak a gyakorlatában használt (vagy használható) újabb módszereket is magában foglalja.

In contrast to case law systems in liberal democracies with independent judiciaries, in an authoritarian context, China's guiding case system is distinctive and cannot simply be explained by current case law theories. This article first explores the distinctiveness of the guiding case system in the specific context of China, as opposed to other types of case law in liberal democracies, and then explains the reason why the Supreme People's Court (SPC) has been able to expand its judicial lawmaking authority in the sense that it is able to interpret the law through guiding cases. Furthermore, it illustrates that the Main Points of the Adjudication (MPA), as a part of a guiding case, has essentially become a form of statutory interpretation which enables the SPC to independently perform a legislative function to a certain extent with no routine surveillance by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC). This is in contrast to the previous practice where the SPC performed the legislative function merely through having it delegated by the NPCSC. Moreover, it is suggested that under China's authoritarian regime the effectiveness of the SPC's lawmaking function through the guiding case system largely depends on the extent to which the courts could be independent in the context of China.

In Marshall NO v Commissioner, South Africa Revenue Service (2019 6 SA 246 (CC)) the constitutional court heard an application for leave to appeal against the decision of the supreme court of appeal in Commissioner, South African Revenue Service v Marshall NO (2017 1 SA 114 (SCA)) on the proper interpretation of sections 8(5) and 11(2)(n) of the Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991. The interpretation of these provisions is of seminal importance in deciding the question if the South African Red Cross Air Mercy Service Trust is exempt from paying value-added tax on payments it receives for actual services it renders to provincial health departments. he question before the constitutional court was therefore if a court may consider or defer to an administrative body’s interpretation of legislation in a court’s own construction of the statutory provision and, if so, to what extent a court may do so. The interpretive note, in this instance, is seen as evidence of an interpretive custom of an administrative body. The constitutional court found that an independent interpretation of the relevant sections of the act without reference to the interpretation note led to the same conclusion that the supreme court of appeal reached and, as such, found it unnecessary to decide the point. The court nevertheless made some important, if questionable, observations about the use of custom during interpretation that warrant further scrutiny.