LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: LEGISLATIVE INTENT

This article is written by Bhavya Mittal of 3^rd Semester of National University for Study and Research in Law

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to explain legislative history along with the sub-heading of legislative intent. What are the documents included under the legislative history along with the process and intention involved in it? The author intends to articulate the reason behind the importance of the legislative history, in short, its usage in the court or the restriction made under it. Although legislative history contains the parliamentary documents, what is so different in these which influence the judges and lawyer to dig into it.

The article is further divided into 3 categories including the introduction, main body, and at last the conclusion to provide the readers with a clear picture of the article to understand it in a better way.

The article first starts with the introduction in which the authors have tried to start with very basic by making people understand the meaning of the legislative history and legislative intent in an uncomplicated way, as well as all the documents involved in the legislative history.

The second category contains the main theme of the article, where the author has tried to explain the judicial usage of the legislative history, although legislative intent is part of legislative history but what makes it different and at Lastly, it deals with what are the restriction that comes up with the usage of legislative history.

The third category contains the conclusion where the author has provided us with nothing more than a summary of the article so that after reading the article, the readers will be provided with the overall view of the content and understand the whole paper better at the end making us think that whether legislative history should be proposed more to be in use or the understanding the statue by reading its meaning should be popularized.

The author has read the explanation from various websites, read some case laws, and also cited them to make this paper easy way to understand.

Keywords – Legislative intent, Parliamentary material, The difference between legislative history and legislative intent, Restriction on the use of legislative history, Ambiguous

INTRODUCTION

The legislative history is nothing but the discussion which occurs before passing a law and is even recorded. The documents included in the legislative history database are reports of the committee, hearings, and floor debates. This helps us to know the legislative intent behind the law. It is not that all type of legislative history weighs equal importance, for like the court of law have a different kind of importance to the types of legislative history document, sometimes the report of the committee may become more important than the statement of opposition towards the legislation as the committee may have examined the legislation minutely which on the other hand the powers of legislation get exaggerated by the opposition. The following legislative history documents can even be arranged in the way of descending order where it goes like

1. Committee Reports

2. A. Whole chamber statement of the sponsor

    B. explanations by the committee chair

3. A. Committee hearings

   B. Statement in general base

4. A. Statement of the member of the opposition

    B. The amendments or the language rejected by the committee on the floor.

The main and the most basic need or rather the importance of the legislative history is to clarify the legislative intent of the laws in the situation where the plain meaning or the simple meaning of the law couldn’t be found so we have to go back to know the intention while implying the law. If the language of a certain statute is unambiguous then the interpretation of the meaning should be solely done based on the wording of the statute without the help of external information. But in the case where the law is ambiguous, legislative history plays an important role in case of understanding the intention behind the law, for example, [1]if a criminal law is passed which requires all persons who are under the age of 18 after sundown must hold a federal identification card to be produced before law enforcement officers on demand. Here the word public has been left ambiguous so if a case similar to this comes to court, it will have to consult the legislative history to determine it. Understanding the legislative intent behind ambiguous word influence the lawmaker to provide a consistent and appropriate decision while making law.

In short, the legislative history is used as a unique secondary legal authority, which is not binding on the court like primary authority, primary one includes constitution, statutes, laws, and agency whereas the secondary one is only used as an instrument to know the precise meaning of an ambiguous law or a provision.

JUDICIAL USAGE OF LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

The court acts as a supplement lawmaker as it makes policies while interpreting the meaning of various legislation with the help of different means of interpretation, for example, while interpreting the labor law court relies on legislative history and intent of the statute the same while interpreting the ambiguous anti-trust laws court relies on more to balance approach.  When the executive, legislature, and judicial agencies take an interest in the making of the law, this interaction is considered an important source of the legislative intent.

Legislative treaties have the same kind of value to that as academic treaties as both use tools outside the statutes to interpret the meaning and purpose of a statute or a particular provision for their aid. From the legislative history, lawyers may use favorable language while from the academic treaties in the process of presenting an argument. On the other hand, the court can use it while interpreting a statute. Recently with the advancement of technology sources like the internet has become an important platform for legislative history in various bills and laws. To determine the context and usage of a statute legislative history is used. We often move to external sources for understanding the legislative intent of a statute.

Even in one such case, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India held that the question as to whether mandatory provisions contained in states should be considered merely as a directory or obligatory has often been considered in judicial decisions. In dealing with questions no general or inflexible rules can be laid down. It is a matter of trying to determine the real intention of the legislature in using imperative or mastered words, and such intentions can be gathered by careful examination of the whole scope of the statute and the object intended to be achieved by the particular provision containing the mandatory clause.[2]

It is the fact that legislative material can be cited in any provisions or statutes, this is one of the reasons why the French government has tried to spread the legislative material so that it is accessible to all lawyers.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY v. LEGISLATIVE INTENTION

When a bill is brought into the parliament there is a process through which it changes into law, so this process through which we know how a bill becomes law is legislative history, all the steps involved in the process of making a bill into law or all the documents included under this comes in it. While legislative intent is understanding the reason behind why a certain bill coming in the parliament changes to law and knowing the person behind these reforms or proposing the idea. Legislative intent is part of the legislative history

[3]Legislative history includes –

Primary documents

• File
• Reports of the Committee
• Analyses of the bill
• History of the bill
• Fiscal notes

Hearing of the committee and audio tapes

Journal

Reports of the Interim Committee

Legislative Intent includes

Knowing the

• Author of the bill, or who is the sponsor of the legislature as the word of the legislator weighs a lot in understanding the intent.
• Witness, supporter, and opposition
• Organisations, individuals, or the committee proposing that ideas 

Includes the events, federal involvement

RESTRICTION IN THE USAGE OF LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

Useful information available in the parliamentary record is difficult to be ignored. While using the legislative history there are certain restrictions in the usage, many times judges refuse to take account of the legislative history saying that parliamentary material is inadmissible. in court.  It is said that the record of parliament is necessary for knowing the legal intention behind the law, but when it comes to reliability, it is not considered a reliable source to explain the meaning of the statute as none in that material is produced which shows the interpretation of the statute. It is not wrong if judges use the report of a committee under the legislative history, to determine the intention of parliament in bringing up the statute and the mischief it’s trying to curb. In the case of Pepper v. Hart[4], it stated that the court can consider the legislative history under three conditions

1. The legislation dealing is ambiguous, and absurd in short nothing can be concluded
2. It is necessary to understand the statement of ministers
3. Statements which we relied on are clear

The case, at last, concluded that the unavailability of the legislative history is not an obstruction during the practice.

The use of legislative concerns falls into two broad category one is the Democratic Theory Concern and the other one is Practical Concerns [5]

• Democratic Theory Concern- Under this theory, the state is governed by the statute instead of extra statutory material, however, their legislative history is capable to override or potentially to mute the statute. In the Democratic Concern theory, legislative history even has the extraordinary power to distort the voice of our constitutional branches like legislative, executive, and judiciary. In relation, the courts use the legislative history like winners and losers by accepting the views of some and rejecting the views of others.
• Practical Concerns – Various Practical concerns restrain our dependency on the legislative history which can be further divided into the potential for abuse, the cost incurred due to its usage, and its use in such a way that is untrue. The most common concern toward legislative history is that it can even be used as manipulation which is potential for abuse, it is common that we listen to what we like to hear in the same way legislative history is used to find our answer but over-reliance on the legislative history would only come as an obstruction to determine the meaning of the statue. Instead of judging through their hard work and logic, they would be more tempted to use legislative history.

The legislative history also incurs the cost first of the accumulation of all the information and secondly, lawyers now can’t prepare them just by interpreting the meaning of statutes they have to study or search for all the legislative history related to its which causes extra time and effort ultimately this action increases the cost. The use of legislative history will also slowly lead to the highly untrue interpretation of the statutes. It is highly likable that the use of legislative history to know the legislative intent even be untrue.

CONCLUSION

To reach the end i.e., conclusion legislative history can be used as a means. But to accept it as evidence the proceeding reliability has to be one of the important factors. There might be certain provisions or statutes whose meanings are ambiguous and is difficult to understand what the law wants to state at that instance there is a chance of insight, through a reliable source of information like parliamentary material. Although the interpretation done through legislative history does not lead to any guaranteed clarification. Through several decisions, it was observed that legislative intent cannot be thrown away even if it means being a bit harsh on some sections of people, in comparison to the interest of the larger section of people.  The law passed by the parliamentary agency must be evaluated by its intent. It is not far from reality that benefits incurred from legislative history are marginal compared to the amount of effort and abuse involved. It is important to think that the outcome involved in the legislative history is up to par with the effort we put into it or the outcome could be granted just by understanding the meaning of the statute or provision as it is.

REFRENCES

1. State of West Bengal v. M/S. B.K. Mondal And Sons (1962) AIR 779,1962 SCR Supl. (1) 876
2. Pepper v. Hart,1 All ER 42(1993, House of Lords)
3. Legislative history vs. legislature intent,Texas.gov, available at https://lrl.texas.gov/legis/legintent/historyvsIntent.cfm#:~:text=Legislative%20history%20relates%20to%20how,can%20often%20illustrate%20legislative%20intent. Last seen on 5/7/2023
4. Kenneth W. Starr, Observation about the use of Legislative History,1987-371, Duke Law Journal,371,375, available at https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2988&context=dlj  last seen on 5/7/2023
5. Legislative History, Encyclopedia .com, available at https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2988&context=dlj last seen on 5/7/2023

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[1] Legislative History, Encyclopedia .com, available at https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2988&context=dlj last seen on 5/7/2023

[2] State of West Bengal v. M/S. B.K. Mondal And Sons (1962) AIR 779,1962 SCR Supl. (1) 876

[3] Legislative history vs. legislature intent,Texas.gov, available at https://lrl.texas.gov/legis/legintent/historyvsIntent.cfm#:~:text=Legislative%20history%20relates%20to%20how,can%20often%20illustrate%20legislative%20intent. Last seen on 5/7/2023

[4] Pepper v. Hart,1 All ER 42(1993, House of Lords)

[5] Kenneth W. Starr, Observation about the use of Legislative History,1987-371, Duke Law Journal,371,375, available at https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2988&context=dlj  last seen on 5/7/2023