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Meaning, Time and the Law: Ex Post and Ex Ante Perspectives

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International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper considers the tension between timelessness and timeboundedness in legal interpretation, examining parallels between sacred texts and secular law. It is argued that familiar dualities such as those between statute and judge-made law, law and equity, written and spoken discourse, dictionary meaning versus intended or contextual meaning, can be examined using this timeless/timebounded framework. Two landmark English cases, DPP v Shaw (1961) and R v R (1991) are analyzed as illustrating contrasting aspects of the socio-legal politics of “reasoning backwards”. The related temporal distinction between ex ante and ex post points of view is examined both within legal theory and as a key issue for linguistic and semiotic systems. The argument is made that this distinction is the key to a wide range of methodological and theoretical problems in relating linguistics and semiotics to law.

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Notes

  1. [1942] A.C. 206, at p. 245.

  2. [1961] A.C. 220.

  3. [1961] A.C. 220, at p. 267.

  4. [1961] A.C. 220, at p. 292.

  5. 1961] A.C. 220, at pp. 293–294.

  6. [1961] A.C. 220, at p. 290.

  7. [1961] A.C. 220, at p. 292.

  8. [1961] A.C. 220, at p. 272.

  9. [1992] 1 A.C. 599. For discussion of the history of this issue and more detailed legal analysis, see Geis [21], Brooks [22], Laird [23], Padfield [24], Ryan [25], and Bennice and Resick [26].

  10. Hale’s rule or its equivalent still holds in a number of former British colonies and in other jurisdictions worldwide.

  11. (1989) S.L.T. 469, at 473.

  12. R v Clarke (1949) 2 All E.R. 448, R v Miller (1954) 2 Q.B. 282, R v O’Brian [1974] 3 All E.R. 663, R v Steele (1976) 65 Cr. App. R. 22, R v C [1991] 1 All E.R. 755. See also the Australian case R v L (1991) 174 CLR 379. For discussion of the background to this case, see Manchester et al. ([28, pp. 389–417]).

  13. [1992] 1 A.C. 599, at p. 611.

  14. [1992] 1 A.C. 599, at p. 611.

  15. [1993] AC 593.

  16. [1992] 1 A.C. 599, at p. 622. See Montclair v Ramsdell 107 U.S. (1883) 147, at p. 152: “It is the duty of the court to give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute, avoiding, if it may be, any construction which implies that the legislature was ignorant of the meaning of the language it employed.”.

  17. [1976] 1 Q.B 319, at p. 332.

  18. (1996) 21 E.H.R.R. 363.

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  1. School of English, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Rd, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

    Christopher Hutton

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Hutton, C. Meaning, Time and the Law: Ex Post and Ex Ante Perspectives. Int J Semiot Law 22, 279–292 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-009-9113-9

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