TROUBLE ON OILED WATERS—STATUTORY INTERPRETATION
| Date | 01 July 1976 |
| Published date | 01 July 1976 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1976.tb01464.x |
TROUBLE
ON
OILED WATERS-
STATUTORY INTERPRETATION
“SINCE
a large and ever increasing amount of the time of the
courts has, during the last three hundred years, been spent in the
interpretation and exposition
of
statutes,” Viscount Simonds once
remarked, “it is natural enough that
in
a
matter
so
complex the
guiding principles should be stated in different language and with
such varying emphasis on different aspects of the problem that sup-
port
of
high authority may be found for general and apparently
irreconcilable propositions.”
’
The recent House
of
Lords decision in
Federal Steam Navigation
Co.
Ltd.
v.
Department
of
Trade and
Zndustry2
is embroiled in this matter, indeed
so
complex.
Section
1
(1) of the Oil
in
Navigable Waters Act
1955
(as
amended) enacts that
“If
any oil
.
. .
is discharged from
a
British
ship
.
. .
the owner or master of the ship shall be guilty
of
an offence.”
The House of Lords held (Lord Reid and Lord Morris
of
Borth-y-
Gest dissenting) that
“
or
”
in
“
owner or master
”
must be construcd
conjunctively, and accordingly both the owner and master wcre
lawfully convicted under the ~ection.~ The decision adds another
string to the already much weighted bow of statutory interprctation,
and the points raised by the appeal invite further examination.
Lord Wilberforcc considered that there was no rule which required
that “or” should carry an exclusive force. Whether it did
so
depcnded on the context. It was the meaning of the phrase
as
a whole
that mattered, not whether
“
or
”
was conjunctive or disjunctive. But
his Lordship conceded that
“
to substitute
‘
and
’
for
‘
or
’
is
a
strong
and exceptional interference with
a
legislative text and in
a
penaI
statute one must
be
even more convinced of its necessity.” Lord
Reid was strongly dissentient. He was in no doubt that
“
‘
or’
can
never mean ‘and.’ The dictionaries have been searched in vain for
any trace of any usage by which ‘or’ has
a
conjunctive meaning.
It
is
true that
in
some authorities it has been stated that
‘
or
’
can be
hcld or construed to mean ‘and.’ In my judgment that is quite
wrong.”
The
Federal Steam Navigation
case raises two of Viscount
Simonds’
“
apparently irreconcilable propositions,” or to bc more
exact, two competing and mutually exclusive interpretative rules.
These rules are clearly illustrated by the contrasting words
of
two
nineteenth-century judges. In
The Alina
’
Sir George Jesse1 M.R.
laid down “the rule of construction
.
. .
in all the cases
.
. .
is this,
~~~
~-
1
Arr.-Gen.
v.
Prince
Ernest
Augusfus
o/
Ifanover
[I9571
A.C.
436, 461.
2
119741
1
W.L.R.
505,
H.L.
9
3
&
4
Eliz.
2,
c.
25.
4
“19731
1
W.L.R.
1373,
C.A.,
on
appeal
from the
Central
Criminal
Court.
5
[I9741
1
W.L.R.
505,522.
6
Ibid.
at
p.
508.
7
5
Ex.D.
227.
402
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