High Court. Is there a "principle in Australian common law respecting the single legal personality of spouses"? In other words, do husband and wife form a single person at common law? Does or did the Australian common law include "a rule by virtue of which the common law of conspiracy does not apply to spouses"?
Some of the questions to the High Court (HCA) were as follows:
Question 1: Should the language of a statutory code be presumed to be "intended to do no more than restate the common law"?
Question 2: Can it be said that "the common law cannot be used to supply the meaning of a word used in a code except where the word has a well-established technical meaning under the pre-existing law and the code uses that word without definition"?
Question 3: Can it be said that "the common law cannot be used to supply the meaning of a word used in a code except where ... it appears that the relevant provision in a code is ambiguous"?
Question 4: Can the common law "be invoked in the interpretation of a code for the purpose of creating an ambiguity"?
Question 5: Is there a "principle in Australian common law respecting the single legal personality of spouses"? In other words, do husband and wife form a single person at common law?
Question 6: Does or did the Australian common law include "a rule by virtue of which the common law of conspiracy does not apply to spouses"?
The HCA answered those questions as follows: