Scottish Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Scottish Law - Essay Example A separate parliament for Scotland was established in 1999, with power to legislate on most areas of private law." (Real Property Law, 16 September 2008). The year 1707 saw the union of Scotland and England; prior to this both the countries were separate states and many similarities in their laws. English Law has a great influence on the Scottish Law; many rules followed by the English were included in the Scottish Law. This paper will throw light upon the Scottish law focusing majorly upon three traditional rules of statutory interpretation which are mischief rule, the golden rule and the literal rule Mischief rule is applied when the judge can't quite make out whether an act done by a person can be called as a prohibited law, this creates a confused situation and this is exactly when the mischief rule can be applied. "For example, the Street Offences Act 1959 made it an offence for a prostitute to solicit men 'in a street or public place'. In Smith v. Hughes the question was whether a woman who had tapped on a balcony and hissed at men passing by was guilty of an offence under the Act. Parker, L.C.J., found her guilty: 'I approach the matter by considering what is the mischief aimed at by this Act. Everybody (sic) knows that this was an Act intended to clean up the streets, to enable people to walk along the streets without being molested or solicited by common prostitutes. Viewed in that way, it can matter little whether the prostitute is soliciting while in the street or standing in a doorway or on a balcony." (Interpretation of Law 16 September 2008). The case given as an exa mple did not create a big hitch in applying the Mischief Law because the circumstances in which the mischief was committed were well known but in other cases it is often a very difficult task to apply the Mischief Rule. This rule has several benefits over the Golden Rule and the Literal which will be seen in the paper at a later stage. One advantage which this rule provides is that, the Law provides a feeling of satisfaction to the Law commission the Law commission considers this as one of the most satisfying rule to judge a situation because when this rule is applied, the Law commission looks at various things like what does the Law provide before the act is made and numerous other things, this rule is applied with reasoning hence it provides the Law commission with satisfaction. Another advantage of this law is that it provides the convict with what he/she deserves, in the sense that there is room for unjust in this rule, making this as one of the want to bee's for any legislature . The Golden Rule "Where the meaning of words in a statute, if strictly applied, would lead to an absurdity, the golden rule is that the courts are entitled to assume that Parliament did not intend such absurdity, and they will construe the Act to give it the meaning which Parliament intended." (Interpretation of Law 16 September 2008). This rule mainly focuses upon giving an absurd or a silly result, when a judge feels that he/she is about to pass a silly result or verdict this is when the Golden rule plays its part. This rule is also called a compromise between the two other rules which are the mischief rule and the literal rule. This basically means that this rule falls somewhere in the middle of the two other rules and tries to find a way out and the way out differs from the solutions provided by