Many statutory offences in English criminal law appear absurdly broad in their scope. This article examines the role that narrow construction might play in limiting the scope of such offences. As a case study, the article uses the offence of possessing information of a kind likely to be useful to a terrorist, under section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000; and the House of Lords’ interpretation of this offence in the 2009 case of R v. G. It is argued that, within a purposive approach to statutory interpretation, narrow construction can provide a legally permissible means of narrowing the scope of absurd offences. However, this approach requires courts to address difficult moral questions about the convictions and punishments that they are authorizing—questions which, ultimately, they may wish to avoid.

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缩小荒谬的广泛罪行的范围：恐怖分子占有案例

英国刑法中的许多法定罪行的范围似乎非常广泛。本文研究了狭义解释在限制此类罪行的范围方面可能发挥的作用。作为案例研究，该文章使用了 2000 年《恐怖主义法》第 58 条规定的持有可能对恐怖分子有用的信息的罪行；以及上议院在 2009 年 R v. G 案中对该罪行的解释。 有人认为，在对法定解释的有目的的方法中，狭义解释可以提供一种法律上允许的缩小荒谬罪行范围的手段。然而，这种方法要求法院解决关于他们授权的定罪和惩罚的困难的道德问题——最终，他们可能希望避免这些问题。