Legislative intent

Under common law, the courts sometimes face the following difficulty:
 the meaning of the law/ legislation is ambiguous or obscure
 an usual interpretation of the law results in absurd result(s)

To tackle the problem, the courts may have to, go back to the basics and, figure out the original intention of the legislation. In other words,  the legislative intent. It's helpful to read the parliamentary documents containing the relevant dicussions by the lawmakers when the law (often involving controversial issues (e.g. immigration) was written. Pepper v Hart [1993]A general overview of Hong Kong’s Interpretation and General Clauses. Eamonn Moran, Frances Hui, Allen Lai, Mabel Cheung & Angie Li, :en:Department of Justice (Hong Kong), November 18, 2010

References