Does Deference to Administrator’s Interpretations of Statutes Undermine Principled Statutory Interpretation?
Legislation has proliferated throughout modern society. Administrative bodies apply and interpret this legislation. These interpretations are necessarily ‘dynamic’; that is, they change over time as social circumstances change. People can challenge administrators’ decisions. Thus, courts must interpret the legislation. Here, courts can either obey the administrator’s dynamic interpretation (obedience-deference), or may accord it merely some weight in reaching its own interpretation (weight-deference). However, these approaches are invalid if they fail to meet the bare minimum requirements for a dynamic interpretation to be valid. This article argues that the dynamic interpretations fail to meet the minimum threshold; and thus, blindly obeying administrators’ interpretations is invalid.
