ABSTRACT
If we were asked by what method the authors prepared the present work, there would be a very simple answer. Over seven years they met intermittently and developed a set of questions about interpretation in their own countries that they should all answer, and they then tried to answer in a common way the questions they had agreed upon, bearing in mind comparative points thrown into relief by awareness of the others' answers. Each was to do this with a view to rroducing a mainly descriptive account of the prevailing practice o statutory interpretation within one's own legal system (or set of related systems, as in the UK). The questions are listed in Appendix I below. (The group developed, as well, an elaborate set of guidelines for answering the questions.)
Many readers will neither wish nor need to know more about our method, and will not care about the methodological justiflcations that make our approach a sound one in our view. Such readers should forthwith proceed to the next chapter, pausing perhaps, to review the questions in the Appendix. Other readers, however, may be inclined to press further on methodological issues. They will want to know how the authors justify the whole project of asking just that set of questions, and giving just the kind of answers disclosed in Chapters 3-11 on interpretation in the countries represented in the project. Valuable criticisms of the whole project offered by, in particular, Professors Hubert Rottleuthner and Jan van Dunne at a Bielefeld meeting in 1988 made clear the need for an account at this deeper level and for some alterations in the questions (and guidelines). Professor John Bell and Dr James Evans and Dr Geoffrey Marshall subsequently added further points of no
less importance for clarifying the authors' approach. In response, a summary statement on meHiod and approach has
been worked out to the general satisfaction of all the participating authors. Each of Chapters 3-11, about interpretation in the various countries (structured as a set of answers to the common questions), should be considered as aiming to produce the following:
An important addition, briefly treated at the end of this chapter, has been the adoption, so far as is possible without distortion or misrepresentation of materials discussed or described, of a common terminology and typology for use by authors.
