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43 Statute L. Rev. iii (2022)

handle is hein.journals/statlr43 and id is 1 raw text is: Statute Law Review, 2022, Vol. 43, No. 1, iii-iv https://doi.org/10.1093/slr/hmacOOl Advance Access publication 1 February 2022 EDITORIAL The Avoidance of Circularity One of the earliest and most basic lessons that a legislative drafter learns is that circu- larity in a definition must be avoided at all costs because it literally renders the defin- ition meaningless. Having absorbed that basic lesson, the neophyte drafter quickly learns that a def- inition may sometimes appear circular superficially, without actually being so: for ex- ample, a word that carries a sufficient natural language meaning to stand alone without definition, may be the subject of a definition that uses the word itself, but merely as a peg for a qualification or limitation ('vehicle' includes any vehicle whether or not...). Constructions using that kind of apparent circularity apart, there is never any excuse for real circularity in a definition, and every drafter is taught to check her or his work with particular attention to the possibility of a circularity having crept in unwittingly. When the courts spot circularity they are rightly scathing. See, for example: 'Distribute in Section 4(4) fares little better. It is a circular definition: Distribute...means distribute by means of a distribution system So distribute means distribute means distribute. A hint as to the meaning is given by the ex- planation that distribution is through a system which is something used for conveying electricity, which can be taken to suggest that distribute connotes a purely physical transport or conveyance function. In the Directive Distribution is pithily defined as transport and the unequivocal qualification is added but does not include supply (see paragraph [80] above). However, the do- mestic equivalent does not make this clear'-R. (UK Power Networks Services (Contracting) Ltd) v The Gas and Electricity Markets Authority [2014] EWHC 3678 (Admin). As I put it in Craies on Legislation (12th Edition, 2020, para. 24.1..2)- A definition that depends for its meaning on a provision of itself becomes cir- cular and devoid of effect. One might think that this was so obvious that it could readily be avoided by the drafter. The reality is that this is a heffalump trap the floor of which is more thickly populated with unwary woozles than one might expect. The trap is particularly difficult to spot where the definition is distributed between more than one provision and the separated parts are inter-dependent. © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissionspoup.com. . iii