The Hamlyn Lectures 2017 - Oxford
Professor Andrew Burrows QC will deliver the first of the Hamlyn Lectures to be chaired by Baroness Hale of Richmond, President of the Supreme Court.
The Hamlyn Lecture Series 2017
Thinking about Statutes: Interpretation, Interaction, Improvement.
LECTURE 1: ‘Statutory Interpretation’
Abstract: Despite its central importance, the study of statutes as a coherent whole has been and remains sadly neglected in UK law schools. These lectures address some of the central issues that arise if one thinks seriously and at a practical level about statutes. This first lecture on statutory interpretation examines four main questions. What is the present English law on how a statute is to be interpreted? Is statutory interpretation best understood as seeking to effect the intention of Parliament or is that an unhelpful fiction? What insights are to be gained by the idea that a statute is ‘always speaking’? And can one assimilate statutory interpretation with other types of legal interpretation, in particular the interpretation of contracts and common law precedents?
The series is run in partnership with the Hamlyn Trust.
The Hamlyn Trust was created in 1948, by Miss Emma Hamlyn in memory of her father, a solicitor and Justice of the Peace in Torquay, Devon.
The object of the Trust is to further knowledge and understanding of the law; this is achieved through an annual series of public lectures by distinguished judges, legal practitioners, academic lawyers and other eminent speakers.
The trust is administered from the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London.
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