ABSTRACT
Where legislation is particularly revealing, however, is in the way each statutory proposition is constructed around an institution, even if such institution is highly descriptive (cf Chapter 3 § 3(a)). As Gaius insisted, law consists of persons, things and actions and these institutional focal points not only form the basis of all statutory rules, but also are capable of determining, to some extent, the way a section will be interpreted. Rules framed around things encourage the courts to focus only on the thing itself,118 whereas rules attaching to persons emphasise the acts and behaviour of such persons.119 In addition, the Gaian scheme allows the interpreter to reflect upon the nature of legal subjects and legal objects in the context of the dichotomy between substantive and procedural rules. Thus, the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 denies, as a matter of substantive law, that a trade union is a legal person (body corporate). However, as a matter of procedure it allows such an ‘organisation’ (s 1) to make contracts and to sue and be sued in its own name (s 10). Similarly, the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934, although refusing to resurrect a dead human as a legal person, nevertheless stipulates that certain causes of action shall survive against or for the benefit of his ‘estate’ (s 1). Equally, a child in the womb is not a legal person as such, but the Congenital Disabilities (Civil Liability) Act 1976, through the notions of ‘damage’ (s 1(1)) and ‘parent’ (s 1(3)), creates a situation whereby a tortfeasor can be liable to a child injured before birth.
