Interchanging the words ‘or’ and ‘and’ can make a big difference when applying legislation to any situation.
A great example of this is the 15 year determination to the Retail Leases Act 2003 which has recently caused a great disruption. If the word ‘or’ is read disjunctively as ‘or’ then many, if not most, leases of more than 15 years duration could be excluded from the Retail Leases Act 2003.
In a recent decision of Luchio Nominees Pty Ltd v Epping Fresh Food Market Pty Ltd (Building and Property [2016] VCAT 937, Member Edquist concluded that:
47 Having regard to the actual text employed in the Determination and its context, I find that Epping’s proposition that sub-paragraph (f) assumes the prior application of either (d) or (e), in other words that the word ‘or’ after sub-paragraph A(e) must be read as an ‘and’, is not sustainable.
In short, the Member held that ‘or’ means ‘or’ in the 15 years determination.
Click here to read an article by Sam Hopper, Barrister on the topic.
