'Which is to Be Master,' the Judiciary or the Legislature? When Statutory Directives Violate Separation of Powers

53 Pages Posted: 17 Oct 2008 Last revised: 20 Jun 2022

See all articles by Linda Jellum

Linda Jellum

University of Idaho College of Law

Date Written: October 15, 2008

Abstract

Statutory interpretation is at the cutting edge of legal scholarship and, now, legislative activity. As legislatures have increasingly begun to perceive judges as activist meddlers, some legislatures have found a creative solution to the perceived control problem: statutory directives. Statutory directives, simply put, tell judges how to interpret statutes. Rather than wait for an interpretation with which they disagree, legislatures use statutory directives to control judicial interpretation.

Legislatures are constitutionally empowered to draft statutes. In doing so, legislatures expect to control the meaning of the words they choose. Moreover, they prefer to do so early in the process, not after a judge has interpreted the statute in a way they did not expect or intend. Judges are constitutionally empowered to interpret statutes without legislative-micromanagement. The question then is how to balance these valid, but competing, constitutional roles. This article explores when statutory directives violate separation of powers and concludes that when the legislature tries to control the process of interpretation, as opposed to trying to influence the outcome of interpretation to promote specific policy objectives, the legislature aggrandizes itself, oversteps constitutional boundaries, impermissibly intrudes into the judicial sphere, and becomes master of the interpretive process.

Keywords: statutory interpretation, statutory directive, separation of powers, functionalism, formalism

JEL Classification: K00

Suggested Citation

Jellum, Linda, 'Which is to Be Master,' the Judiciary or the Legislature? When Statutory Directives Violate Separation of Powers (October 15, 2008). UCLA Law Review, Vol. 56, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1285086

Linda Jellum (Contact Author)

University of Idaho College of Law ( email )

P.O. Box 442321
Moscow, ID 83844-2321
United States

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