The Construction of Statutes, 7th Edition

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Part art, part science – that's the essence of effective statutory interpretation. And understanding that balance is precisely the kind of insight you'll glean from this latest edition of the industry-leading resource, The Construction of Statutes.

This is a volume that no lawyer can afford to be without: knowing how to read and apply statutes, and to construct sound arguments regarding statutory interpretation, is a critical skill to possess, regardless of specialty or area of practice. This seventh edition offers a comprehensive and up-to-date examination of the rules and principles governing statutory interpretation, including the latest cases and developments.

Features of This Volume
Written by the premier authority on statutory interpretation in Canada, The Construction of Statutes, 7th Edition offers:

• Clear explanations of the traditional rules of interpretation, including the principles underlying the rules and numerous illustrations of their application
• Complete coverage of this vital aspect of legal practice in one source, from ordinary meanings, bilingual interpretation and purposive analysis, to crown immunity, external context and all points in between
• A consideration of the concept of entire context embodied in the modern principle and whether ambiguity has any role to play in determining what aspects of context are admissible in interpretation disputes
• Chapters on the temporal operation of legislation and the rules governing the temporal, territorial and personal application of legislation

What's New In This Edition

• An account and critical assessment of reliance on corpus linguistics by American lawyers and courts to establish the ordinary meaning of a text
• A demonstration of the discrepancy between the courts’ insistence on treating all presumptions of intent as presumptions of last resort (following the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in Bell ExpressVu Limited Partnership v. Rex) and case law treating some as strong presumptions
• A new analysis of the justification for reliance on legislative history and of the criteria for assigning weight to legislative history
• A new analysis of the presumption against the retrospective application of legislation, taking into account some new judicial approaches to this issue
• An acknowledgement of Indigenous law as part of the Canadian hierarchy of law and of the challenges its re-emergence creates for Canadian courts
• More inclusion of provincial appellate case law

An Invaluable Reference
Because statutory interpretation has such wide-ranging application, The Construction of Statutes, 7th Edition is relevant and useful to virtually anyone practising or studying law. Everyone from judges and government lawyers to civil litigators and administrative lawyers will benefit from the insight and expertise that Sullivan imparts through this resource.