In law, legislative intent is a factor used to interpret statutes. It is most frequently invoked in attempting to interpret an ambiguous statute or one which does not appear to speak to a particular issue. Law (a loanword from Old Norse lag), in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments for those who do not follow... A statute is a formal, written law of a country or state, written and enacted by its legislative authority, perhaps to then be ratified by the highest executive in the government, and finally published. ...

Sources of legislative intent

Courts frequently look to the following sources in attempting to determine the goals and purposes that the legislative body had in mind when it passed the law:

• the text of the bill as proposed to the legislative body,

• amendments to the bill that were proposed and accepted or rejected,

• the record of hearings on the topic,

• legislative records or journals,

• speeches and floor debate made prior to the vote on the bill,

• legislative subcommittee minutes, factual findings, and/or reports,

• other relevant statutes which can be used to understand the definitions in the statute on question,

• other relevant statutes which indicate the limits of the statute in question,

• legislative files of the executive branch, such as the governor or president,

• case law prior to the statute or following it which demonstrates the problems the legislature was attempting to address with the bill, or

• constitutional determinations (i.e. "Would Congress still have passed certain sections of a statute 'had it known' about the constitutional invalidity of the other portions of the statute?"). United States v. Booker, 125 U.S. 738 (2005)

Application of legislative intent

Courts in the United States and elsewhere have developed a number of principles for handling such evidence of legislative intent; as an example, many courts have suggested that the comments of those opposing a bill under consideration should be treated with skepticism, on the principle that opponents of a bill may often exaggerate its practical consequences.

One early example of an important Supreme Court case which relied on legislative intent was W.O. Johnson v. Southern Pacific Co. (1904) 196 U.S. 1, where the court decided that a man may sue the railroad for failing to have an automatic coupler since the legislature was attempting to remedy the problem of multiple injuries by railroad coupling.

Others, most notably United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, have objected generally to the use of such evidence, rather than reliance on the literal language of the statute, arguing that such evidence of "legislative intent" is often created by proponents of a bill to persuade a court to interpret the statute in a way that they were not able to persuade the legislative body to adopt when passing the bill. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States... Justice Antonin Scalia Justice Antonin Scalia (born March 11, 1936) has been a U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice since 1986. ...

These principles of legislative intent often overlap with those principles of statutory construction that courts have developed to interpret ambiguous or incomplete legislation. As an example, the principle that courts should not interpret a statute to produce absurd or unintended results will often be informed by evidence of what the proponents of a bill stated about the objectives to be achieved by the statute. Rules of construction or statutory construction is a phrase used to distinguish the rules of statutory interpretation from other rules or aids for the interpretation of law in the common law. ...

See also

• Legislative history