ABSTRACT
Difficulties can arise in understanding an Act of Parliament because of an oversight by the drafter, a misprint, or even a mistake as to the law as it existed when the Act was made by Parliament – difficulties which are considered in Chapters 30 and 31. However, the difficulties to understanding an Act of Parliament are not limited to difficulties such as those. Parliament is passing an increasingly greater number of Acts, and government departments are finding a need for an increasingly greater number of statutory instruments. The more Acts are required, the greater is the pressure upon the drafter. The greater, therefore, is the risk of lack of clarity in the wording of the Acts of Parliament. One confused piece of drafting called forth the following comment:
Lord Wilberforce in a case decided in the House of Lords complained of an Act that
In another case Lord Wilberforce complained that ‘the section is a labyrinth, a minefield of obscurity’.3
