ABSTRACT
In Duke of Devonshire v O’Connor, Lord Esher M. R., stated that, In an Act of Parliament there are no such things as brackets any more than there are such things as stops.1 It has been contended by Lord Reid2 that before 1850 at least there were
no punctuation marks in the manuscript copy of an Act of Parliament. This has been challenged.3 To Thornton, punctuation
… is a device of syntax - a means, supplementary to word order, of suggesting the grouping of words in a sentence and thus revealing its structural pattern. The purpose … is to assist the reader to comprehend more quickly the intended meaning by providing sign posts to sentence structure.4 Dreidger contended that, Punctuation should not be used to convey meaning … Punctuation, judiciously used, will guide the reader through the sentence, help him sort out its elements and subconsciously prevent him from going astray.5 In disagreeing with Lord Reid,6 Bennion states that, Modern draftsmen of public general acts take great care with punctuation, and it undoubtedly forms part of the Act as inscribed in the royal assent copy and thereafter published by authority.7 Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes8 appears to support the contention of
Craies on Statute Law9 that ‘punctuation forms no part of any Act.’ Maxwell argues that ‘there was generally no punctuation in old statutes as engrossed on the Parliament Roll, and not all modern vellum prints of statutes are punctuated.’ But Bennion adds that Mellinkoff10 has shown that ‘English statutes have been punctuated from the earliest days.’11
