What does the phrase &quot;in this act unless context requires otherwise&quot; mean? Various Commonwealth countries, like Malaysia, Singapore and India, use this phrase in sections which include definitions or explanation of a law. What does it mean? E.g., Article 13 of the Indian Constitution has the phrase in this article unless context requires otherwise: law means any rule, order or custom established by a competent authority Can this be used to broaden or narrow the scope based on the context?
what does the phrase &quot;in this act unless context requires otherwise&quot; mean? It means that the provision or statutory definition is not to be imposed where its application would make no sense or would lead to an absurd outcome. Using the example point out, statutory or judicial references to &quot;laws of physics&quot;, &quot;law of supply and demand&quot;, and so forth are not to be construed as enactments or rulings issued by some authority. Accordingly, such laws are not susceptible to violation, enforcement, or repeal.
The general rule is that you must comply with all laws. The first thing that means is that you are required to know what the law is, thus ignorance of the law is not a defense for not complying. There are some special circumstances regarding notice, so a law must have been published. Second, whatever the law requires you to do, you have to do it, regardless of any difficulty you might encounter (e.g. you have to pay your taxes even if you don't have enough money). Suppose that a law is so onerous that it is literally impossible to obey it: you still have to obey the law. You have to file a lawsuit against the government challenging the constitutionality of the law, to get the law overturned. Frequently, more requirements are imposed on businesses than on individuals, but there is no legal difference between impositions on individuals and impositions on businesses in terms of laws being difficult to comply with.
Art. 19 of the Indian Constitution states that (1) All citizens shall have the right (a) to freedom of speech and expression... from which is follows that you may advance any argument that you want in support of an idea. The courts have never questioned this. There is a potential grey area regarding verbal acts that cause the use of violence, but in terms of presenting reasons that such-and-such acts are good (or bad), that form of expression is absolutely protected. The grey area comes from clause 2: Nothing in sub clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub clause in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence whereby a law against inciting to violence might pass constitutional muster. &quot;Justification&quot; of an action is very different from &quot;inciting&quot; to do an act.
&quot;Necessity&quot; is a defense against criminal prosecution in many jurisdictions. However, what counts as &quot;necessary&quot; is situation dependent. The essence of an action being &quot;necessary&quot; is an action is necessary if there is no other means of preventing a crime. In your scenario, there are many non-criminal alternative means of preventing the theft, such as calling the police, moving your car, or locking it, so stealing a person's car is not necessary. The conclusion that a crime &quot;will be committed, but for...&quot; also has to be clearly supported by reason.
england-and-wales northern-ireland General rule It doesn't make any difference. Section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1978 provides: Where an Act authorises or requires any document to be served by post (whether the expression “serve” or the expression “give” or “send” or any other expression is used) then, unless the contrary intention appears, the service is deemed to be effected by properly addressing, pre-paying and posting a letter containing the document and, unless the contrary is proved, to have been effected at the time at which the letter would be delivered in the ordinary course of post. Provided you meet the following elements: Properly addressing Properly pre-paying Properly posting, then you can take advantage of the above deemed delivery rule. It also makes no difference whether or not the recipient &quot;might or might not bother to open&quot; it. What matters is when it was delivered. The rebuttable presumption is that the notice is effective when it would have been &quot;delivered in the ordinary course of post&quot; (e.g. next day for first class, etc.). To rebut that, the burden of proof shifts to the recipient, who must prove (on balance of probabilities in a civil case) that it was delivered late or not at all. In practice that will be extremely difficult in the majority of cases. You might try to make an argument that &quot;letter containing the document&quot; implies an envelope. However, in my view, the ordinary meaning of the word letter means a piece of paper with some written words on it. A letter is still a letter even when it isn't inserted in an envelope. &quot;Contains the document&quot; suggests to me that the document is found within the words written on the piece of paper. Exceptions The phrase &quot;unless the contrary intention appears&quot; means that if a particular Act contains its own rules of service which contradict Section 7, then Section 7 will be overridden.
There is no particular mention in the OSCOLA guidelines for how to refer to laws of England and Wales. In academic papers it is common to see both &quot;English Law&quot; and &quot;English and Welsh Law&quot;, usually depending on whether the particular point relates directly to England, Wales or both. However, in the case of Welsh Measures and Statutory Instruments of Wales then it would be correct to only describe the laws as &quot;Welsh Law&quot;.
There is a potentially infinite regress of questions regarding the constitutionality of restrictions imposed under these "emergency" circumstances. The basic legal principle is clearly established: laws restricting fundamental rights are subject to strict scrutiny. The specific details of a particular law and surrounding circumstances have yet to be discovered by the courts. If it is necessary to the purpose of saving lives that meetings of more than 10 people be prohibited, then the "compelling interest" test probably has been satisfied. That is basically a medical question, and the courts have a limited interest in scientific controversies, instead they are interested in whether people who make legal decisions do so rationally (is it reasonable to think that such limits would accomplish that compelling government end). Is it reasonable to think that restrictions lasting two months are necessary? The Black Death lasted at least 4 years. In the current circumstances (very limited hard knowledge this disease), it's hard to say what government actions could not be excused based on necessity. Summary execution is, at least in the current knowledge context, probably not going to pass strict scrutiny. As already explained in other thread on the topic, there is no "churches are above the law" constitutional provision. The appropriate question in the Florida case is not about the First Amendment, it is about the Due Process clauses – is the arrest lawful? We will, no doubt, see. On the face of it, he violated the law, so he can be arrested. I understand that there is a team poking holes in the order.
It may &quot;seem[] normative&quot; that &quot;a law cannot enumerate any specific persons or companies to be included or excluded from its provisions.&quot; But in fact it is not generally the case. There are various kinds of laws that traditionally have named specific people or entities to define their scope. These include: In nineteenth-century England, a divorce could only be granted by a specific law passed by Parliament, naming the persons to be divorced. I am not sure when the practice stopped. In the US during the nineteenth century (and I think the early twentieth century also) a corporation was normally formed by a specific law granting a charter of incorporation to the named company. In the US during the period 1866-1870 there were a number of laws passed permitting former Confederate officers and officials who were presented by the 14th amendment from holding office under the US or any state to hold office again, as the amendment provides for. Eventually Congress passed a more general amnesty. It was once common for the English Parliament to pass bills of attainder. These were legislative declarations that a particular person was guilty of a particular crime, generally without any trial or other process. Sometimes the specific sentence was also imposed by such a bill. This was sufficiently resented that the US Constitution specifically forbids Congress or any state from passing such a bill. It was once common for actual laws to grant payments to specific people for specific purposes. This is no longer common, but there is no legal bar to it in either the UK or the US that I know of. The UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 contains a provision enabling Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children to continue to receive royalties for performances and adaptations, publications and broadcast of &quot;Peter Pan&quot; whose author, J. M. Barrie, had given his copyright to the hospital in 1929, later confirmed in his will. This right is to persist even after the expiration of ordinary copyright for the play, but is not a full grant of copyright. Laws or ordinances invoking eminent domain to take the property of particular individuals for particular purposes are common, mostly at the local level. In the US, the Equal Protection Clause generally forbids laws which treat people, or groups of people, differently unless there is some rational basis for the distinction. But in some cases a plausible basis is asserted and such laws are passed.