What is purposive interpretation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10853282 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jacob Weinrib (0000-0003-2562-6504, Associate Professor, Queen’s University Faculty of Law. I am grateful to Colin Grey, John Mark Keyes, Ryan Liss, Carissima Mathen, Karine Millaire, Peter Oliver, Terry Skolnik, Grégoire Webber, Ernest Weinrib and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. For research assistance, I am grateful to Manula Adhihetty, Oliver Flis, Shane Gould, Catherine Oatway, and Irene Li. This project was supported by an Insight Development grant awarded by the Social Science and..., corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 74 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 74-108 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | University of Toronto Law Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0042-0220 • E-ISSN: 1710-1174 |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.3138/utlj-2021-0116 |
| OpenAlex | W4294811563 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 24 |
Purposive interpretation leads a double life. As a matter of constitutional practice, it forms the doctrine through which courts in Canada and around the world determine the concrete protections that abstract constitutional rights afford. However, as a matter of constitutional theory, purposive interpretation is routinely rejected as either an empty phrase that offers no alternative to established theories of constitutional interpretation or a dangerous doctrine that provides no basis for distinguishing between justified and unjustified interpretations of constitutional rights. This essay formulates a conception of purposive interpretation that is not vulnerable to these objections. The purposive approach to the interpretation of constitutional rights follows from a set of ideas about how legal interpretation differs from interpretation more broadly, how constitutional interpretation differs from interpretation in other legal domains, and how constitutional interpretation constrains both the purposes it attributes to particular provisions and the application of those purposes to particular contexts. My aim is to show that these ideas fit together in a coherent doctrinal whole that is neither empty nor dangerous. Purposive interpretation is not empty because it offers a genuine alternative to the presuppositions and structure of opposing interpretive paradigms. Purposive interpretation is not dangerous because it provides a principled set of resources for distinguishing between justified and unjustified interpretations
Constitutional Interpretation · Doctrine · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Nonprobability sampling · Political science · Presupposition · Set (abstract data type · Sociology · Computer Science · Criminal Law and Evidence · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy
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| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |