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Below The Surface: Comparing Legislative History Usage By The House Of Lords And The Supreme Court , James J. Brudney
Below The Surface: Comparing Legislative History Usage By The House Of Lords And The Supreme Court , James J. Brudney
Faculty Scholarship
In 1992, the Law Lords (the judicial arm of the House of Lords) overruled more than two centuries of precedent when it decided in Pepper v. Hart that courts could refer to and rely on legislative history to aid in construing enacted laws. The ensuing fourteen years have witnessed a robust debate among British judges and legal scholars as to the scope and propriety of Pepper. This article offers the first empirical and comparative analysis of how Britain's highest court has used previously excluded legislative history materials in its judicial decisions. Although the Law Lords opened the door to reliance …
Intentionalism's Revival , James J. Brudney
Intentionalism's Revival , James J. Brudney
Faculty Scholarship
This essay responds to an article by Professors Boudreau, Lupia, McCubbins, and Rodriguez (hereinafter "BLMRod") that was posted in Legislation and Statutory Interpretation Abstracts on July 26, 2007, (http://ssrn.com/abstract=997924) and that will appear in the San Diego Law Review, vol.44, no.2, 2007. The essay situates BLMRod's article in the context of recent efforts by a number of scholars to reclaim foundational legitimacy for intentionalism as an approach to construing statutes. The essay first applauds BLMRod's use of insights from communication theory to conceptualize statutes as compressed substantive or procedural commands that cannot be adequately understood without an appreciation for the …