legislative intent
Statute's intended meaning
Legislative intent is the purpose or goal that lawmakers had in mind when enacting a statute.
Courts often try to determine legislative intent when interpreting ambiguous laws, looking to sources like committee reports, floor debates, and the statute's stated objectives.
The judge examined legislative intent to resolve the disputed provision.
Critics argue that legislative intent is often a fiction, since legislatures are groups whose members may have had varying or conflicting purposes.
- constitutionalityAccordance with founding charter
- enactmentPassing into law
- committee hearingsOfficial legislative inquiry sessions
- floor debatesSpoken disputes among legislators
- rationaleStated basis for action
amendments · originalism · spirit of the law · reading between lines · judicial restraint · spirit · parliamentary procedure · precedent · lawmakers · separation of powers · judicial · meaning · bill · testimony · statute · drafter · hearing · motive
- official recordsbirth certificate, government documents, birth certificates, death certificate, death certificates
- legal interpretationoriginalism, plain meaning, textualism, historical interpretation, literal interpretation
- legal termstrial, legal, appeal, lawsuit, law
- legislationbills, acts, laws, statutes, bill
- Court JurisprudenceSupreme Court rulings, landmark cases, landmark decisions, court opinions, majority opinions
- judicial reviewjudicial review, constitutional review, mandamus, prohibition, judicial oversight
legislative intenttextualism
Interpreting law literally
plain meaning · literal interpretation · letter of the law · judicial activism · judicial discretion