Defending Aggregated Legislative Intent

Abstract

Theories of aggregated legislative intent posit that the legislative intent of parliament is what some - significant enough - proportion of legislators intended (e.g. legislative intent is p if a majority intend that p). After all many think the same way about democracy – votes reveal the will of the people – and courts – there is a court decision based on judicial voting. The existing literature on aggregated legislative intent, however, tends to make two undefended assumptions: (i) Informed Assumption: all legislators have policy intentions and (ii) Group Intent Assumption: that the existence of an aggregated intent entails the existence of a group intent. Despite these assumptions being subject to great scrutiny, they largely remain undefended. This paper defends the Group Intent Assumption and shows that aggregated theories can survive with a weaker version of the Informed Assumption.

Keywords: Legislative Intent, Aggregation, Intentionalism, Parliamentary Intent