The need for this book arises from the fact that the majority
of cases nowadays turn on the disputed legal meaning of some enactment. In his 1983 Hamlyn
lectures, the then Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone said that over nine
out of ten cases heard before the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords involve the meaning
of words contained in enactments of primary or secondary legislation. This applies also
in the lower courts. The difficulties have got worse since 1983, and increased further
when the Human Rights Act 1998 was brought into full operation on 2 October 2000.
The book was first published in 1984. Its reception by the legal
profession can be seen from Reviews, where Lord Justice Sedley said it 'substitutes for
the conventional categories a series of derived principles and propositions which make
it possible often to crack a problem of interpretation by approaching it laterally'.
Publishing History
First edition 1984
Supplement to first edition 1989
Second edition 1992
First supplement to second edition 1993
Second supplement to second edition (cumulative) 1995
Third edition 1997
Supplement to third edition 1999
Fourth edition 2002
Supplement to fourth edition 2005
Fifth edition 2008
Additional updating each year in All England Law Reports
Annual Review.
