参考答案：

The purposive approach The purposive approach rejects the limitation of the judges’ search for meaning to a literal construction of the words of legislation itself. It suggests that the interpretative role of the judge should include, where necessary, the power to look beyond the words of statute in pursuit of the reason for its enactment, and that meaning should be construed in the light of that purpose so as to give it effect. This purposive approach is typical of civil law systems. In these jurisdictions, legislation tends to set out general principles and leaves the fine details to be filled in later by the judges who are expected to make decisions in the furtherance of those general principles. European Union (EU) legislation tends to be drafted in the civil law manner. The need to interpret such legislation has forced a change in that approach adopted by UK courts in relation to EU legislation and even with respect to domestic legislation designed to implement EU legislation. Thus, in Pickstone v Freemans plc (AIHH), the House of Lords held that it was permissible, and indeed necessary, for the court to read words into inadequate domestic legislation in order to give effect to EU law in relation to provisions relating to equal pay for work of equal value. However, it has to recognised that the purposive rule is not particularly modern and has its precursor in a long established rule of statutory interpretation, namely the mischief rule. The mischief rule This rule permits the court to go behind the actual wording of a statute in order to consider the problem that the statute is supposed to remedy. In its traditional expression, it is limited by being restricted to using previous common law rules in order to decide the operation of contemporary legislation. Thus in Heydon’s case (AEHD), it was stated that in making use of the mischief rule, the court should consider what the mischief in the law was which the common law did not adequately deal with and which statute law had intervened to remedy. Use of the mischief rule may be seen in Corkery v Carpenter (AIE0), in which a man was found guilty of being drunk in charge of a carriage although he was in fact only in charge of a bicycle.