ABSTRACT
The intention of Parliament is to be discovered by a body of independent persons, free from any direct interest in the result, and trained by long years of practice to standards of judgment by which that intention may be tested. Acts of Parliament are not self-operative; they have to be applied by men. The intent of Parliament is gathered not, as the layman might naturally expect, from Hansard and such evidence as the Reports of Royal Commissions. Acts of Parliament are scrutinized in the terms of that tradition. Every period of rapid social change confronts the danger that its legal habits may not keep pace with the political decisions it has to interpret. That is a danger to which our judiciary is particularly susceptible simply because its methods of interpretation are built predominantly upon a philosophy those political decisions may easily seek to reverse.
