Interpretative Argumentation Schemes

Tarello (1980) identified fifteen kinds of arguments used for statutory interpretation, and later, MacCormick and Summers (1991) recognized eleven types of interpretive arguments. Building on this work, the aim of this paper, part of a wider research project, is to formulate argumentation schemes for statutory interpretation. To indicate the direction of this work, an example of one of the schemes is given along with a set of critical questions. Also, a brief indication is given of the extended example used to show how the schemes are to be fitted to the argumentation in a case. In the example scheme below, E represents an expression (word, phrase, sentence) that was used in a document (source, text, statute) D where E can be given more than one interpretation (I1, I2, . . .In) in document D. In addition, E can be shown to be used in setting Si of S1, . . ., S11.