Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
Why with less precision? In other places the intention and reasoning is stated.
To take the current example. Even if the wording of the law said "free delivery" if you are allowed to make non-literal interpretations it is obvious that one cent would be considered to fall under this law since it is virtually free and falls under the category the law was intended to cover.
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What do you mean by in other places? Emails between those involved? Newspaper articles and reports? Television news? Rumours? The plain fact is that Parliament gets the opportunity to pass its legislation in an unambiguous form. If it fails to do this then they get a second bite at the cherry, so to speak. But it will surely not surprise you to learn that even then the materials that may be taken into account to determine intention are limited, for example, in Australia, to a Bills Explanatory Memorandum and perhaps a second reading speech.
In the current example, I disagree with you totally. "Free" is not "virtually free". And if one looks at intention it is strongly arguable that the intention was not to catch, as you put it, "virtually free". Amazon in fact warned what it intended to do, yet the law still went through as is. Had the intention been to stop Amazon offering "virtually free" shipping, then the Politicians, forewarned, could have done this. Presumably they deliberately formed the intention not to do so.
Not all lawyers agree, but I am a strong believer that wherever possbile one should be able to look at the law and interpret it from its plain words whenever possible, rather than reading the plain words and then having to undertake a wide-ranging enquiry about what Parliament may or may not have intended.