Legislative intent refers to the goals behind a law’s creation, often gathered from its history. Some argue it is irrelevant, while others use it to clarify gaps in laws. It plays a role in the judicial activism debate.
Legislative intent refers to the goals that a legislative body was trying to achieve by passing a piece of legislation. Evidence of intent is usually gathered through the examination of legislative history, which can include any documentation that surrounded the creation and passage of a law or statute. Legislative intent is the source of much legal controversy, not just about interpretation, but about the validity of using sources other than the text of the law to interpret the law.
A legislature usually does not pass laws for no reason; nearly every law goes through a thorough process of research, reporting, and debate before it even gets to a vote. This process generates a large amount of material on the issues surrounding the bill, including committee reports, sponsor submissions, related legislation, prior case law, and testimony transcripts or tapes. All of this information can be important in describing not only how the law came about, but also what it was intended to accomplish.
Some argue that legislative intent is irrelevant; what matters is the text of the law. Using legislative history and other means to imply intent, critics suggest that people opposed to the law are simply trying to pass a reform that failed in the bill’s initial passage. In other words, if the intent had really been different than what the text of the law suggests, the bill would not have passed in the first place. Also, since a legislative body is made up of individuals rather than a single voice, there are likely to be testimonials, accounts, and other historical documents to support every argument, which can be twisted to fit any theory of intent.
Proponents of using arguments from legislative intent suggest that, while ideally laws are clear enough for intent to be apparent, there are still gaps and loopholes in the laws that require interpretation. As judges and legal experts are called upon to clarify these gaps, understanding the legislator’s intent in passing the law can help these experts come up with a workable interpretation. Furthermore, some proponents argue that the world is changing: 19th-century lawmakers could not possibly anticipate the technological and social developments of the modern world, so their intent in creating the spirit of the law may be a more useful guide than the text of an archaic law .
The use of legislative intent in legal interpretation plays an important role in the judicial activism debate. Proponents of judicial restraint believe that judges serve the sole purpose of enforcing written laws, while proponents of judicial activism suggest that judges serve the purpose of interpreting as well as merely enforcing. Depending on which side of the argument a person falls on, legislative intent becomes a trap to avoid or a tool to be used.
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