Additional commentary

Introduction

In addition to the comments contained in the text boxes, the following comments will help you when you start to read other statutes.

Interpreting the Act generally

Since the Act creates criminal offences, whenever there are two or more possible meanings, the defendant will seek to rely on the presumption that Parliament intended the meaning which is most favourable from his or her point of view.

When identifying the purpose of the Act, regard may be had to the Explanatory Notes which accompanied the Bill (which became the Act) during its progress through Parliament. Explanatory Notes are available at www.legislation.gov.uk.

Headings and marginal notes

As you have seen in the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003, sections may appear under headings (which are sometimes known as cross-headings). In longer and more complicated statutes, these headings may introduce groups of sections rather than every individual section. Additionally, until 2001, the statutory text was accompanied by marginal notes (also known as side-notes or shoulder notes), which, obviously enough, appeared in the margin. Although the use of marginal notes has now been discontinued, you will, of course, still encounter them in pre-2001 statutes. The question, therefore, arises as to their status in the process of interpretation.

The most recent, and most authoritative, answer to this question was given, unanimously, by the House of Lords in R v Montila [2005] UKHL 50, [2005] 1 All ER 113:

[34] … Account must, of course, be taken of the fact that these components were included in the Bill not for debate but for ease of reference. This indicates that less weight can be attached to them than to the parts of the Act that are open for consideration and debate in Parliament …. One cannot ignore the fact that the headings and sidenotes are included on the face of the Bill throughout its passage through the legislature.

[35] … It has become common practice for their Lordships to ask to be shown the explanatory notes when issues are raised about the meaning of words used in an enactment.

[36] The headings and sidenotes are as much part of the contextual scene as these materials, and there is no logical reason why they should be treated differently.

Schedules

Many longer and more complicated statutes conclude with schedules. Whether there are schedules (and if there are, what goes into them) is a matter of style. However, in general terms, it can be said that schedules generally contain details that are unlikely to change very often. For example, a statute which creates a new public body may well state its function in the main part of the text, with the detailed arrangements for the appointment and removal of members being put in a schedule. This arrangement makes the statute much easier to read, since the reader can grasp the overall scheme first, without having to wade through a mass of detail which can be read as and when it is necessary to do so. It follows, therefore, that schedules are integral parts of the statutes in which they appear, and must be interpreted as such. (Attorney-General v Lamplough (1878) 3 ExD 214.)

In passing, it may be worth mentioning that some other kinds of detail may well appear in delegated legislation (see p. 24), rather than in the statute itself. It is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules as to what sort of details should be left to delegated legislation. However, experience shows that details which are likely to change relatively frequently (such as fees payable to public bodies by users of their services) and details which can be finalised only after extensive consultation (such as the layout and precise contents of prescribed forms) are best enacted in this way. (The alternative would be to pass an amending statute every time a fee was increased to take account of inflation, or delaying the enactment of the statute until the last practical detail had been settled, or both.)

For a much more detailed treatment of the principles of statutory interpretation, see, for example, Ian McLeod, Legal Method, 9th edn 2013, Palgrave Macmillan.