CIMA BA4 · Chapter 9 · Question 5 of 10
A judge interprets a statute by looking at what problem the Act was intended to remedy and interpreting it to address that problem. Which rule of statutory interpretation is being applied?
Test yourself: pick an answer
Reveal answer & explanation
Correct answer: A) The mischief rule
Explanation
The mischief rule, from Heydon's Case, asks what the law was before the Act, what defect (mischief) it was intended to remedy, and interprets the Act to suppress that mischief. The literal rule gives words their plain meaning, the golden rule modifies a literal meaning to avoid absurdity, and ejusdem generis is a linguistic rule for general words following specific ones.
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